TikTok’s future in the United States is murkier than ever after a federal appeals court upheld a law last week that could force the app to sell its US operations or be banned as early as January 19. TikTok sued, claiming the law violated the First Amendment, but the justices sided with the Department of Justice, agreeing that the federal government has the authority to block or force a sale of TikTok if it poses a risk to national security—even a hypothetical one. (For years, US lawmakers have claimed that TikTok’s China-based owner, ByteDance, could use the app to spy on Americans or influence the content they see.)
The court’s decision leaves TikTok with few avenues for survival. One possibility is that president-elect Donald Trump could find a way to “save” the beloved platform come January, something he promised to do on the campaign trail. But beyond winning a final legal appeal at the Supreme Court, which is far from guaranteed, finding a wealthy buyer in the US may be TikTok’s most viable option.
One of the most prominent prospective buyers to emerge so far is real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Frank McCourt, who says he has received $20 billion in informal commitments from investors to purchase the app as part of what he calls the “people’s bid.” The sale would bolster McCourt’s existing technology initiative Project Liberty and the so-called decentralized social networking protocol it has developed. McCourt wants to incorporate the DSNP into TikTok and allow users to export their friends across other interoperable apps.
WIRED spoke with McCourt earlier this week about what else he would do with the app, including keeping some form of advertising (“People, in America in particular, like to buy things,” he says) and letting people curate their own recommendation algorithm (“It’s a much better model”).
To read the full interview, visit the WIRED website here.