Source, hous of representatives

On Saturday (21st), the US House of Representatives passed a bill that will make Tiktok's Chinese owner's byte beating to face a severe choice -selling its US business or banning.

Because the data of millions of Americans may fall into China, the US Congress has stepped up to separate Tiktok from this parent company headquarters in Beijing.

This time the Tiktok bill is bundled with the aid bill, Israel, and Taiwan's bills and obtained it -providing new military assistance to Ukraine with $ 61 billion;It is used for Gaza humanitarian assistance; providing $ 8.1 billion in funds for the Asia -Pacific allies, including Taiwan, to "fight against China."

When the bill was passed by 311 votes for 112 votes, cheers and applause broke out in the House of Representatives, and some members waved the Ukraine flag.The bill is expected to be submitted to the Senate on Tuesday (23rd). If the Senate approves, it will be submitted to President Biden to sign the effect.

Tiktok said that byte beating (its parent company) "is not an agent in China or any other country."Byte beating also insists that he is not a Chinese company, because international investors have 60% of its shares.

But Tiktok's great success in the United States has made it a hot spot in Washington and Beijing.

About 170 million Americans spend at least an hour a day to brush Tiktok.According to data from Pew Research Center, 60 % of them are young people, and one -fifth of them say they are "almost often used.More than 40% of American users say this is their fixed news source.

Tiktok may be questioned as freedom of speech.

Although the application of the forced byte beating seems simpler, this choice is also facing obstacles.For example, the Chinese government may strive to prevent the sale; and who will buy Tiktok's business in the United States?It is estimated that the price of this part of this business may be as high as $ 100 billion.

Byte beating in 2012 was founded in China, and it was popular in China with a short video application.One year later, it launched the international version of TIKTOK, but it has won one billion users worldwide in five years.

Now, TIKTOK is operated by a limited liability company located in Los Angeles and Singapore, but it is essentially beating by bytes.Although the founder has only 20% of the shares of byte, it owns the company's controlling stake.About 60%of the shares are held by institutional investors, including General Atlantic, Susquehanna and Sequoia Capital.The remaining 20%are held by employees around the world. Three of the five members of the company's board are Americans.

With more and more American intelligence officials warning China's behavior, the United States has been fighting China ’s actions in its territory.In 2022, Washington banned the sales and imports of five Chinese companies including Huawei and ZTE.Now, this suspicion has spread to infrastructure such as Chinese manufacturing cranes commonly used in the US port, including the cranes used by the military.

China regards these concerns as a delusional disease in the United States, and warns that the Tiktok ban will "inevitably bite the United States."

Since 2022, TIKTOK has stored its US data and isolated on the server headquarters in the Oracle company headquartered in Texas.

Tiktok's CEO of Singaporean, Zhou, has received questioning of Congress twice in less than a year and diluted the application of the application with China -and his personal connection with China.

He repeatedly reminded himself that he was a Singaporean instead of the Chinese.After voting in the House of Representatives, he said that Tiktok "will continue to do what he can, including exercise of legal rights" to protect American users using the application.

Although the byte beating attempts to reassure Washington, the U.S. House of Representatives decided to sell Tiktok to non -Chinese owners for six months as early as March voting in March, otherwise it will block the application in the United States.The bill still needs to be approved by the Senate.

The House of Representatives performed on the same bill this time, but this time it was bundled with the aid bill, Israel, and Taiwan's bills.Eventually passed the bill.

The new version of the bill gives the bytes to beating the company for nine months to determine the fate of Tiktok -if the opportunity to sell looks hopeful, President Bayeng can extend the last period for another 90 days.Biden has stated that when the bill is submitted to his desk, he will sign to make it a law.

Price for TIKTOK

The valuation for selling Tiktok is very tricky.

As a private company, TIKTOK will not announce financial details, but it is estimated that by 2023, its revenue in the United States will reach 16 billion to 20 billion US dollars, accounting for 16%of the total revenue of bytes.

"In the normal market, it is not difficult to get a valuation of $ 100 billion." Jiangganl, the person in charge of the Singapore Risk Investment Corporation Momentum Works, said, "But in the current political risk and lack of liquidity,In the case, if the transaction really occurs, the valuation will be greatly impacted.

He said that the wrist with byte beating is not good.

Ling Vey-Sern, the Asian technical consultant of the Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privée, said, "it will only close (in the United States) business instead of in exchange for billions of dollars."

Li Jianggan said that "when the situation changes", the "ban" may still be canceled and allow it to return to the US market, and "selling" means more certain consequences.

The United States is not the first country to block TIKTOK -India has blocked Tiktok on the grounds of security issues in 2020.Jayanth N Kolla, the founding of the technical consulting company Convergence Catalyst, said that the reason why Tiktok could survive after the ban was because the Indian market at the time was as large as the current US market, but the profits were not high.

The United States is now the largest market in TIKTOK, accounting for about 17%of its total users, and it is also the most profitable market."If TIKTOK loses the US business, it is not only the user base, but also a large part of income. This is a huge loss," said Koura.

Who will buy Tiktok

First of all, not many companies have the ability to acquire Tiktok.And those companies with strong financial resources, such as Meta or Alphabet, may be hindered by anti -competition law.

Another main obstacle is whether the transaction will include the so -called recommendation engine of Tiktok.The artificial intelligence algorithm that provides users with content is critical to the application.

When the United States tried to forcibly sell Tiktok in 2020, bytes last time, bytesThe beating indicates that the addictive algorithm it has is not among the transactions.But if the algorithm is not sold, TIKTOK neither dispels Washington's concerns nor attracts buyers.

Li Jianggan said that algorithms are the "most controversial" part of any transaction."Any potential acquirers who only buy Tiktok's user base and content may seek high discounts."

Analysts believe that companies operating in China are much stronger in terms of positioning users, so it is difficult to copy.They have a huge market to develop, which means that artificial intelligence models have more information and practice to become better.The company can also dig more data because the supervision is weak.

Tiktok also left a question, that is, how TIKTOK owned by the United States interacts with other places."Imagine if TIKTOK (users outside the United States) said, Anupam Chander, a jurisdiction professor in science and technology supervision, said, said, said,"

said. "

"How do we know this is not China's propaganda? Do we have to stop Americans from seeing foreign accounts now? This sounds more like what we did 25 years ago."