Team Biden Is Posting Through the Looming TikTok Ban
WiredMay 03
ByteDance Denies It's Exploring TikTok Sale
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The Facts
ByteDance, social media platform TikTok's Chinese parent company, Thursday denied a report from The Information saying it was exploring a sale of the app to a US-based company.
In a post on Toutiao, a media platform owned by ByteDance, the company said it has no intentions to sell despite US Pres. Joe Biden this week signing a law requiring a sale of TikTok to a US entity within 270 days under threat of a ban.
The Spin
Anti-China narrative
TikTok as currently constituted is a national security risk because ByteDance, like other Chinese companies, is legally required to submit data to the PRC government. ByteDance must divest its ownership in order to keep users' data privacy secure.
Pro-China narrative
This US law isn't about national security, it's about commercially undermining China. ByteDance will fight this in the courts, and if it loses it might shut down the app and let the US deal with the backlash of a world without TikTok.