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TikTok remains one of the fastest growing and active platforms in the digital age, with over a billion monthly active users on the app. Depending on who you ask, that number could be significantly higher.
The social media app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is also one of the most divisive platforms around right now and, in the USA, it is set to be banned within a week – unless a law is overturned or the app is sold.
There are 170 million users in the States, the country with the second-highest useage of the app behind only Indonesia – but eventually they won’t be able to any longer unless a change takes place. And it’s not totally out of the question that a sale does happen; despite dismissive responses this week to reports Elon Musk would be invited to buy the US arm of TikTok, one American billionaire clearly is in the running to do just that.
Frank McCourt, who launched the Project Liberty initiative, wants to buy TikTok…but not as you know it.
The idea behind Project Liberty is to develop a “better internet” by allowing people to “take back control of their digital lives”. In short, they want online time to be healthier and lead to development of people, not just a drain on their data and finances. So McCourt wants TikTok – but not the algorithm which comes with it, which he has labelled “highly addictive”.
There remain plenty of issues with a purchase offer going through, not the least of which is the ongoing Supreme Court judgement on the original banning order.
Factor in America-China business relations, the fact the Chinese government owns part of ByteDance, the complicated ownership structure surrounding TikTok itself and plenty more besides, and it’s clear there are several hurdles to jump.
Another is the actual valuation. McCourt’s bid, through Project Liberty and other investors, is for a reported $20bn (£16.4bn) – based on an equivalent enterprise value of Snapchat, Forbes report.
There has been no confirmation from ByteDance over the bid, nor whether they’d even sell the app, let alone how much for.
Forbes suggest different ways of valuing TikTok could range wildly, up to $300bn (£246bn) if the algorithm were included.
McCourt doesn’t want it. Instead, in an interview with the Times he said he wants the app to be one where users can “signal their interests, express their intent, verify that they’re a human being” and receive ads and content based on that, rather than now where the app works by looking to “surveil people, profile them, target them and push ads towards them”.
The 71-year-old has also said he would take the “exact opposite” approach to content moderation that Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has.
“Put the power in people’s hands to make those choices” around privacy, content use, censorship and moderation, McCourt says.
After working in real estate development in Boston from the 1970s onwards, McCourt later bought MLB side Los Angeles Dodgers for $430m in 2004. However, amid the threat of bankruptcy, he put the team up for sale in 2012 and sold for $2bn, at the time a professional sports team record. In 2016 he bought French Ligue 1 football side Marseille, which he still owns with a 95 per cent majority.
