Tiktok BioSnap a weekly updated Biography.
Here is the latest on me TikTok in the past few days. The single biggest headline is that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared the transfer of TikTok to US control will happen very soon after months of contentious negotiations between Washington and Beijing. According to an interview in the Financial Times, everything has been ironed out permission-wise and the deal should be announced imminently. President Trump approved the new arrangement back in late September, which involves a joint venture managed by American representatives, leaving China’s ByteDance with less than 20 percent ownership and all but removing control by a foreign adversary. At the signing, Vice President J.D. Vance valued the company at around 14 billion dollars after the transaction.
Earlier this week, Trump and Xi Jinping had a phone call exchanging polite economic pleasantries. Trump said the US wants positive trade cooperation while Xi stated China supports a market-based outcome but its position on TikTok, particularly who controls its algorithm, remains unchanged. Beijing continues to insist on keeping the all-important recommendation system under Chinese purview, clashing with the bipartisan US law that mandates TikTok sever algorithmic ties to ByteDance for any sale to go through. This tug-of-war over the underlying technology remains a sticking point even as the deal barrelled ahead.
Meanwhile, Congress’s earlier move to ban TikTok outright if it did not divest from ByteDance briefly plunged the app into darkness at the start of the year, only for Trump to almost immediately sign an executive order keeping it running during negotiations. The back-and-forth extensions, failed deadlines, and now a pending US-controlled ownership have played out in the glare of public debate. The platform is immensely popular; a Pew Research poll recently noted that almost 45 percent of American adults under 30 get their news from TikTok, outpacing YouTube and Instagram.
Internationally, TikTok was just found by the European Commission to be in breach of the Digital Services Act for obstructing researchers’ access to public data, an issue that could result in billion-dollar fines if not rectified. TikTok responded it will review the ruling but claims existing EU privacy laws make compliance tricky.
On the product front, TikTok just rolled out new AI-powered creative tools, announcing updates on its official newsroom, emphasizing its commitment to supporting creators and businesses.
On social media, the transfer news and regulatory drama sparked heated discourse, especially with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew slated to attend Trump’s inauguration—another high-profile stage for the app as it navigates legal, political, and cultural storms. If speculation among policy experts holds true, TikTok’s algorithm is the one piece that could still derail the deal or subject it to more transpacific wrangling, but for now, this long-running saga may finally be nearing a blockbuster resolution.
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