Taxing gatekeepers~I
By 2016-17, Facebook had designed a business model that aimed at maximising the ‘user engagement’, that is how much time users spent on their platform, and started collecting data on what they liked and shared.
In the latest development, ByteDance has reportedly said that it will not sell TikTok’s US operations to Oracle or Microsoft Corp and will not source code to any US buyers, state-owned China Global Television Network (CGTN) reported on Monday.
The latest development comes a day after The New York Times and other US media outlets reported on Sunday that Bytedance has picked Cloud major Oracle over Microsoft to run its US operations as a ‘trusted tech partner’.
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The CGTN in its report said that it “has learned from sources that ByteDance will also not sell TikTok’s US operations to Oracle”.
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ByteDance declined to comment on this matter, the report added.
A Reuters report on Monday said, which cited sources familiar with the matter, that the Chinese-owned firm has decided to abandon the sale of TikTok’s US ops and “decided to pursue a partnership with Oracle in hopes of avoiding a U.S. ban while appeasing the Chinese government.”
In an earlier statement on Sunday, Microsoft said its bid for TikTok operations in the US was rejected. “ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” Microsoft said.
The business sales talk of TikTok in the US hit roadblock after China updated the technology export rules. The update covers Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies used by ByteDance.
China in August updated the list of technologies that are subject to export bans. The new list, released jointly by China’s Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology, added 23 items to export restrictions while technical parameters of 21 items were revised.
The new update in the export rules cover restrictions on technologies such as text analysis, content recommendation and voice-recognition. The technologies on the list cannot be exported without approval from authorities in China.
ByteDance had said “the company will strictly abide” by the new export rules imposed by China.
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