As of this writing, the deadline for a deal with TikTok and a US company is looming just over the horizon. TikTok would remain operational in the US with a consortium bid. Originally, Microsoft was leading the bid wars for TikTok, but got rejected by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, as confirmed by the Microsoft blog. Instead, the lead has been passed to Oracle as the preferred partner.
If the deal with Oracle goes through, a question surfaces, asking how TikTok would work under the new ownership after the dust settles. Since the Chinese Government imposed new regulations restricting the sale of their technological advancements to foreign companies, such as TikTok’s algorithms, these will not be included in the deal. This means that new algorithms will need to be created.
As per SCMP:
“[ByteDance] will not hand out source code to any US buyer, but the technology team of TikTok in the US can develop a new algorithm,” according to a source. The source, who did not want to be identified, said ByteDance had notified US authorities and potential bidders of the decision.”
For more details, go over here to Social Media Today to read the full post on this matter.