Chinese authorities have notified ByteDance that they will not allow the forced sale of TikTok in the United States. Beijing informed the owner of the social network that it would prefer to ban TikTok in the states.
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This was reported by the WSJ citing well-informed sources. According to the publication, Chinese authorities consider that the most preferable option is to ban TikTok in the United States. In this case, the social network will lose its largest market, where it has about 170 million users.
On Thursday, a representative of China’s Ministry of Commerce said at a press conference that the United States must “stop unreasonable pressure” on the social network, and also emphasized that ByteDance “must strictly comply with Chinese laws and regulations.”
The sale of a social network involves a technology transfer, so the company will have to obtain government approval, which, judging by sources, will not come.
Last week, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported a bill requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok, otherwise the platform would be blocked in the country as a national security threat.
TikTok is accused of collecting data from American users and potentially sharing it with the Chinese government. The bill still needs to be approved by the US Senate to take effect.
Former Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick has already expressed interest in purchasing the social network and has also invited others, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, to become its partners.
Author:
Akhmed Sadulayev
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
