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It looks like TikTok will not be banned in the US

I’m honestly surprised this deal went through.

by
Josiah Motley
September 21, 2020

Image: KnowTechie

In the ongoing saga that is TikTok, one thing is for sure – nothing has been normal about any of this. Now, to continue that trend, it seems that a deal has been reached between TikTok and Oracle. Oh, and Walmart. Because that’s a thing. There will also be a new company, TikTok Global, that comes out of this.

So, this deal is nowhere close to what anyone was expecting going into this. Essentially, a new company is being formed and Oracle and Walmart will own 20% of this new company. ByteDance will own the other 80%. It also should be pointed out here that ByteDance ownership is close to 50% US investors, so US presence in the new company will definitely be high.

NPR also notes that four out of five board members on the newly formed company will be American. TikTok Global will be listed on the US stock exchange within the year, alongside an initial public offering.

The whole thing is weird and at the end of the day, one could argue that not much happened. US employees for TikTok have noted (privately) in the past that US data from TikTok was already stored on US servers, specifically Google servers. This deal would task Oracle with storing the data. It’s also important to mention here that Oracle’s founder, Larry Ellison, is a Trump supporter and has hosted fundraisers for him in the past.

One thing about this deal that is a win for everyone is that the algorithm that TikTok uses to cater content to users will remain, since ByteDance will be a majority owner in this new company that will serve TikTok content to US users.

Finally, this new proposal could technically be stopped, as it will need approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States which previously stated that ByteDance should be totally removed from TikTok operations in the US.

We’ll see what happens.

What do you think? Are you glad that TikTok is staying in the US (for now)? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.