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When Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package for TikTok, the nightmare it has haunted for a billion dollars of his life
When President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion dollar foreign aid package on Wednesday, it brought to life a nightmare that has haunted TikTok for more than four years. The United States will ban the app nationwide if ByteDance doesn’t give up its stakes in the company. The signing started the clock, giving TikTok 270 days to find a new owner. The day before Inauguration Day will be the last one for TikTok.
Leah Feiger and Vittoria Elliott on WIRED Politics Lab: The Case of TikTok and ByteDance
The person is calledLeah Feiger. Kelly is a person named Makena. Tori Elliott is @Telliotter. You can write to us at politicslab. Our show is produced by produced by Jake Harper. Jake Lummus is our studio engineer and Amar Lal mixed this episode. Jordan Bell is the Executive Producer of Audio Development and Chris Bannon is Global Head of Audio at Condé Nast.
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It’s going to make America safer, it’s going to make the world safer, it’s going to continue America’s leadership in the world and everyone knows it, said Joe Biden.
Leah Feiger: The package contained billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine and Israel but also had a provision related to TikTok, the immensely popular Chinese-owned social media platform. The platform will have to come under American ownership within a year or it will be banned in the US.
Today on the show, we’re going to talk about what happens to TikTok and how this new law affects the politicians and influencers who use the app. Joining me this week from the WIRED Politics desk in New York are Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott. How are you doing after the news this past week?
In December, WIRED contributor Dexter Thomas sat down with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew during the app’s first-ever music festival, in Arizona. In that interview and others like it, Chew declares his belief that skepticism over TikTok’s security will diminish as the app earns the trust of lawmakers.
There are several ways this could happen. An American company or private equity fund could buy TikTok and its powerful recommendation algorithm. ByteDance is trying to figure out how a sale without the software will look like, as reported by The Information on Thursday. Maybe no one can find a buyer and TikTok goes poof.
Microsoft has suggested that it has an interest in buying TikTok, and it might be one of the app’s only viable choices for a buyer. Can we call Microsoft’s biggest subsidiary, LinkedIn, a TikTok rival with a straight face?
Unless TikTok won a lawsuit challenging the law signed this week, all of the possibilities lead to an vastly different app.
