As the sale deadline looms, Project Liberty wants to buy TikTok and give users their data back. ZDNET spoke with the initiative’s president, Tomicah Tillemann, about the future of the social media app.
The fight over the future of TikTok’s US operations has been a rollercoaster, to say the least. In January, the Supreme Court upheld the decision to ban the app in the US because its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had failed to sell it to a US-based company. However, President Trump granted the company a 75-day extension to find a buyer.
Now days away from the new deadline of April 5, the popular short-video app, which has 170 million American users, is facing another possible shutdown. Several companies and networks have made offers for TikTok and are negotiating with the White House, despite ByteDance not confirming it would accept any bid. While the Trump administration has reportedly been in “serious” talks with Oracle as a front-runner, other bidders include Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, YouTuber MrBeast, tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, and Perplexity AI.
However, only one offer — made by a consortium led by billionaire Frank McCourt through his organization, Project Liberty — wants to radically change how the app operates. Named The People’s Bid, Project Liberty’s offer would decentralize TikTok, claiming to give users more autonomy in where their data goes, how their content is monetized, and, overall, a say in how the platform operates.
ZDNET spoke with Project Liberty’s president, investor, and technologist Tomicah Tillemann, about what that app could look like.
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