The CEO of Tiktok Shou Zi Chew testifies to the House Energy and Trade Committee on March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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After years of unsuccessful negotiations, the Chinese parent company Tiktok Bytedance seems to have finally found a white house can speak sweets.
The technological giant looks ready to keep control Over a series of Tiktok’s basic business functions in the US, including advertising, e -commerce and recommendation systems, despite the executive order signed by Trump saying that “Tiktok’s United States’ request will be operated by a recently established consortium based in the United States”. The Chinese company will also be Keep about 50% of new US Tiktok revenuethrough a set of revenue exchange agreements between the new American entity Tiktok and its former parent.
Trump’s executive order states that the new Tiktok will have no “operational relationship” with ByTedance, despite a report that the agreement will allow BYTANCE continued control over advertising and e -commerce and despite the revenue exchange agreements that will allow BYTEDANCE to continue to continue and control it, Tiktok’s recommendations.
Much of the Trump Tiktok plan recalls a draft agreement negotiated with Biden’s administration in 2022 (and which Tower exclusively mentioned in 2023). In this agreement, too, the Chinese parent company would have maintained the promotion – and in some cases control – basic functions in the new US entity, including budget decisions, asset sales, debt and bankruptcy. But even in the draft agreement That Biden’s administration rejected, Bytence would have given up some control of the US advertising and weapons of Tiktok’s e -commerce to the new US Tiktok entity.
Known as Project TexasThe previous proposal that focused on creating a new US legal entity known as Tiktok US Data Services (USDS). This entity, ByTedance said, will be naturally and technologically separated from the rest of Tiktok and ByTedance and its data will be isolated away from ByTedance in an American data center managed by Oracle. It seems that the “sale” of limited Tiktok assets that make up the proposed Trump deal may be a little more than the sale of Tiktok USDS
If ByTedance maintains control of Tiktok’s US advertising, it may use this control to serve CCP propaganda and Tiktok users.
Project Texas was a focus on Tiktok Shou Zi Chew’s CEO testimony to the House Energy and Trade Committee in 2023 – but Biden’s administration eventually didn’t buy it. A senior employee of the Biden administration prescribed The Congress almost a year after the testimony of the Chew that the proposal “will still allow the algorithm, the source code and the Tiktok software development.
Congress finally agreed. Almost a month after the employee’s testimony passed a law Demanding the sale or prohibition of Tiktok. The law specifically stated that a news, after the sale of Tiktok, could have no “business relationship” with ByTedance-a report and rejecting the condition of the project Texas.
The primary differences between the Texas project and the sale of Trump can be semantic. By the passage of the law, the representatives of the interest groups in Bytedance and its allies had more than a year to reconstruct the terms of the proposal as a “sale” that could meet the letter, if not the intention, of the Congress law. The regulation of regulation as US Tiktok’s “sale”, and not a spinoff of a limited all -American Tiktok functions, gives the impression of a more comprehensive agreement than the real terms of the contract may be worth it.
Continuing control of advertising by ByTedance at Tiktok could be particularly concerned with national security. A reuters report Posted on Friday said a “division that will continue to belong entirely to ByTedance will check [U.S. TikTok’s] Business activities that generate revenue, such as e -commerce and advertising. “In 2023, Forbes said the Chinese state -owned media organizations had lasted ads in Tiktok that reached millions of Europeans with CCP propaganda.
Among the biggest questions about Trump’s Tiktok Agreement is whether it will reflect another set of terms from the rejected Biden agreement that would give the US government unprecedented power over the data and decision-making, including power vetoes and reactions. The White House said the agreement would not include a US government receiving a “gold share” or share capital in the new US entity, but there are questions about whether the agreement contains a special US government in data or policy control.
