With the future of TikTok’s ownership hanging in the balance, two uber-rich, politically connected investors are lying in wait, hoping to snag the app if it’s ultimately put on the market.
Trump-supporting investor and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary and billionaire entrepreneur Frank McCourt, who once owned the Los Angeles Dodgers and has previously donated to Democrats, have linked up on a bid to buy the social media site. Monday’s announcement came as the app’s execs have been trying to fight a law that could ban TikTok in the U.S. unless it’s sold from its Chinese owners by Jan. 19.
TikTok says it’s planning a U.S. shutdown by that date unless the Supreme Court prevents the law from taking effect. President-elect Donald Trump has supported the company’s efforts to block the law, arguing in a legal filing that he should be allowed to “negotiate a resolution to save the platform.”
O’Leary is joining an initiative called The People’s Bid for TikTok — essentially, an investor group of business leaders, tech enthusiasts and academics who want to purchase the app. The effort was launched by a group McCourt founded, Project Liberty, which says it seeks to “help people take back control of their digital lives by reclaiming a voice, choice, and stake in a better internet.”
And I think we should all be pretty wary whenever billionaires tell us they know how to fix anything.
Time magazine has described Project Liberty as a “bold-bordering-on-improbable project to fix the internet.” And I think we should all be pretty wary whenever billionaires tell us they know how to fix anything. (You can read my previous blog on other wealthy investors who’ve shown interest in buying TikTok, including some major Trump supporters, here.)
That said, some of McCourt’s ideas, particularly about people owning their data in some way, borrow from a worthwhile concept known as “data dignity,” popularized by tech innovator Jaron Lanier and economist E. Glen Weyl in their quest to build an internet less vulnerable to manipulation and monopolies. (If the idea interests you, you might also enjoy my interview with Lanier from 2018.)
TikTok isn’t currently for sale. If and when it ever is, I’ll be a bit skeptical that a successful bid from McCourt’s group, which now includes O’Leary, the self-identifying “shark,” could truly move us toward the manipulation- and monopoly-free internet we all deserve.
On one hand, McCourt says some good things.
On the other hand, it’s hard to fathom that a TikTok partly owned by O’Leary would take what I believe are necessary steps to moderate content and prevent TikTok from becoming even more of a disinformation-filled, Trump-friendly app.
Regardless, investors clearly smell blood in the water. And they’re eager to sink their teeth into TikTok.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.