The bidding on TikTok just got fiercer. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is tossing his hat into the ring by joining Frank McCourt, former Los Angeles Dodgers owner, in his bid to acquire TikTok. According to McCourt, “He has that broad portfolio of experience … of where social media was and, I think, a keen understanding of where it’s evolving.”
Project Liberty’s bid
In addition to being the former owner of the LA Dodgers, McCourt is also the founder of Project Liberty. For those unfamiliar, Project Liberty is an organization that wants to “fix” the internet and return data control to users. Many internet services own our data, including social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Social media companies sell this data to marketing firms and advertisers. They then craft “personalized” ads that cater to what they think we like. Project Liberty wants to change that by giving people back their data and letting them choose what they want to do with it. The organization’s bid for TikTok is part of that plan. They envision a “healthier” version of TikTok that is less harmful to children and teenagers.
According to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder of Inrupt, and Director of the open-source protocol, Solid, “Users should have an ability to control their own data, to share it with other people and organizations as they choose. A TikTok utilizing open internet protocols, such as Solid, will embrace the critical values of privacy, data sovereignty, and user mental health.”
Competing bids
McCourt and Project Liberty aren’t the only ones bidding on TikTok. Many other individuals and organizations have placed their bids, including YouTube personality MrBeast. The YouTuber is part of a group of investors raising money to bid on TikTok. Rumors have also claimed that Elon Musk is interested, something that the billionaire has denied.
U.S. President Donald Trump has also floated the idea of creating a sovereign wealth fund to buy TikTok. However, despite all these talks and bids, nothing concrete has surfaced. McCourt says TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is only ‘lightly’ engaging in these talks. However, ByteDance has yet to define which assets it will sell or how it values the company.
McCourt also speculates that ByteDance may simply opt to shut down the app (for the US market) instead of selling it.
