I don't understand why the owners of TikTok would sell the whole thing just because in some worst case scenario the app completely gets restricted in the US.
Although many of the big popular content is from the US and the user engagement is a lot, there's still the rest of the world that would use it.
They’re referring to the shares.
Currently, TikTok is the property, and the companies behind TikTok own percentages of the company.
ByteDance currently owns 100% of the shares. Once U.S. buyers get involved, those shares will be divided among the new owners.
While the final ownership percentages are unclear, it seems Donald Trump wants the U.S. to own at least 51% of the shares.
The group with the largest percentage of ownership would have the power to lead and take control of the app. However, they wouldn’t have complete control, as someone holding 49% of the shares would still have significant influence over the app’s operations.
The app would absolutely take an enormous hit it would likely never recover from if the US was banned. The US is the largest ad revenue TikTok has by a very large margin, and companies rely on that. It would be a ripple effect of financial loss that cannot be understated.
It’s also not simply that “many of the biggest Tik-Tok stars are from USA”, it’s that the cultural ecosystem of social media relies HEAVILY on the USA, for better or worse. Trends start here. Most large companies and media are based here. Hollywood, New York City, etc- the entertainment industry is HEAVILY rooted in these places for the entire world.
All of this would likely lead to TikTok needing to drastically restructure its own business model which would absolutely change user experience, not to mention all the investors who would back out as this process happened.
Of course, this wouldn’t happen overnight. But it also wouldn’t be a super slow process, either.
People who aren’t in the USA need to understand what a big deal this is for EVERYONE. It’s not just “oh, too bad Americans!” It’s a dangerous precedent on censorship that’s already rippling to places like Canada. TikTok has already shut down its offices there and there is early chatter about banning it there, too.
I hope this doesn’t come across as me being pro-America or whatever, it’s not that at all, the opposite actually. But not enough people understand the reality of what will happen to the app if this ban actually went through. The English speaking sector of TikTok would nearly certainly never be remotely the same at that point, and the odds of the app being viable in general at that point would be very, very low.
There’s a reason tiktok is fighting this tooth and nail- they know if this ban goes through it is a death knell for them.
