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Comment by slt2021

17 hours ago

agree, it was just a shakedown and money grab.

some US oligarchs wanted to buy tiktok at deep discount while it was private, and make money off of making it public company

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slt2021

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bko  17 hours ago

Why would it be sold at a deep discount?

About 45% of the US population uses TikTok and 63% of teens aged 13 to 17 report using TikTok, with 57% of them using the app daily

Hell of a product, there would be a crazy bidding war for that kind of engagement

  • Larrikin  17 hours ago

    Because if the Chinese government actually is using it or plans to use it as a propaganda tool there is no amount of money they would accept. The fact that it wasn't sold to a US company offers credibility to the fact that the product is useless to China if it's controlled by a US company and they wanted to keep the data they learned about addiction to themselves. Also probably wanted to build some outrage among young users for the government banning their favorite app

    The sell or be banned part, instead of just banned, was most certainly lobbied for by the US social media companies hoping to get it on the off chance it had served its purpose, wasn't as useful as China had hoped, or the slim chance they really did just want Americans to copy dance trends.

  • slt2021  17 hours ago

    if US government says who is allowed to buy and buyers collude (by pooling financial and political capital together) they can easily not fight a bidding war and lowball instead

    • swatcoder  17 hours ago

      Can you give an example of how the most eligible buyers might collude in a way that benefits them all equally, so that this would happen?

      For me, it's very hard to conceive of any concrete way that would work. It's a brand, some partnerships, and a network of users that would all go to whatever buyer, and would give that buyer a huge benefit over their existing domestic competitors. So under what circumstances would those domestic competitors allow that instead of aggresively trying to secure it for themselves?

      I'm open to believing you, I just don't see what you have in mind.

      8 replies →

    • JumpCrisscross  17 hours ago

      > if US government says who is allowed to buy

      It doesn’t. The courts do. TikTok could be sold to a Hungarian businessman. As long as it can’t be proved they aren’t controlled by China, they should be allowed to reënter app stores.

      2 replies →