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.
ByteDance has been granted additional time to restructure ownership of TikTok after the Donald Trump administration granted a seven-day extension to sell its short video-sharing platform.
The US Department of Treasury on Wednesday said that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) allowed the one-week extension.
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As per the new timeline, the deadline to sell TikTok US’ business has been shifted from November 27 to December 4, in order to review revised submission that the committee recently received.
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This is the second time ByteDance has won an extension on the deadline to wrap up its US operations.
Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration had earlier ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations by November 12. That deadline extended to November 27 when the company received a 15-day extension to reach a deal with American buyers. The latest extension pushes the deadline to December 4.
If the revised proposal submitted by ByteDance is rejected by the Trump administration, TikTok could be effectively banned in the US.
The company is also engaged in a legal battle to block such a potential ban.
TikTok had earlier disclosed that it reached a deal with Oracle and Walmart to address security concerns raised by the Trump administration which had alleged that Chinese government could have access to data of the platform’s American users.
Both TikTok and China rejected the allegations.
On August 6, Trump had issued an executive order banning US transactions with TikTok and ByteDance after 45 days, citing national security concerns. Later on August 14, Trump signed another executive order that forces ByteDance to sell or spin off its US TikTok business within 90 days, setting the deadline of November 12.
In September, Trump gave preliminary approval for ByteDance to sell the app to US buyers, and then a potential deal among ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart emerged. However, the US administration had offered no feedback in nearly two months.
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