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Another Billionaire Pushes a Bid For TikTok, But To Decentralize It (techdirt.com) 68

Posted by BeauHD from the get-your-popcorn-ready dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt, written by Mike Masnick: If you're a fan of chaos, well, the TikTok ban situation is providing plenty of chaos to follow. Ever since the US government made it clear it was seriously going to move forward with the obviously unconstitutional and counterproductive plan to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok or have the app effectively banned from the U.S., various rich people have been stepping up with promises to buy the app. There was former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with plans to buy it. Then there was "mean TV investor, who wants you to forget his sketchy history" Kevin O'Leary with his own TikTok buyout plans. I'm sure there have been other rich dudes as well, though strikingly few stories of actual companies interested in purchasing TikTok.

But now there's another billionaire to add to the pile: billionaire real estate/property mogul Frank McCourt (who has had some scandals in his own history) has had an interesting second act over the last few years as a big believer in decentralized social media. He created and funded Project Liberty, which has become deeply involved in a number of efforts to create infrastructure for decentralized social media, including its own Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSTP).

Over the past few years, I've had a few conversations with people involved in Project Liberty and related projects. Their hearts are in the right place in wanting to rethink the internet in a manner that empowers users over big companies, even if I don't always agree with their approach (he also frequently seems to surround himself with all sorts of tech haters, who have somewhat unrealistic visions of the world). Either way, McCourt and Project Liberty have now announced a plan to bid on TikTok. They plan to merge it into his decentralization plans. "Frank McCourt, Founder of Project Liberty and Executive Chairman of McCourt Global, today announced that Project Liberty is organizing a bid to acquire the popular social media platform TikTok in the U.S., with the goal of placing people and data empowerment at the center of the platform's design and purpose," reads a press release from Project Liberty.

"Working in consultation with Guggenheim Securities, the investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim Partners, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms, as well as world-renowned technologists, academics, community leaders, parents and engaged citizens, this bid for TikTok offers an innovative, alternative vision for the platform's infrastructure -- one that allows people to reclaim agency over their digital identities and data by proposing to migrate the platform to a new digital open-source protocol. In launching the bid, McCourt and his partners are seizing this opportunity to return control and value back into the hands of individuals and provide Americans with a meaningful voice, choice, and stake in the future of the web."
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Another Billionaire Pushes a Bid For TikTok, But To Decentralize It More

Another Billionaire Pushes a Bid For TikTok, But To Decentralize It

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  • Obviously unconstitutional? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Thursday May 16, 2024 @06:06PM (#64477835)

    If so then they don't have to worry. They'll win in court.

    Except there is nothing obvious at all about the unconstitutionality of Congress taking action against a foreign owned business.

      • That's rich
        Do you need a link to a post about North Carolina banning the use of medical masks in public?

      • I'm glad you're keeping up with my posts. I am one of the most informative and educational people here.

        And taking one small case of some poor bastard in NY and applying it to a huge internationally known case makes sense.

        Or not. That sort of over applying lessons is roughly where 4 year olds are in the development cycle. You can google that.

        • I also have a feeling that the NY case will hit SCOTUS and be overturned.....

          • It should but the same judge refused him release while appealing. In a no-bail state where real criminals walk same day.

            • It should but the same judge refused him release while appealing. In a no-bail state where real criminals walk same day.

              Wow...that's amazing.

              Sounds like a constitutional crisis/showdown in the makings.

              I feel sorry for the guy caught in the middle.

              • Ya, it's pretty fucking horrible. He says he's in good spirits and expected this to happen and is looking forward to the fight but he'll be doing it from prison.

    • We do it all the time with tariffs and treaties. Against a US Owned business yeah (no bills of attainder) but I don't think that applies to a foreign owned business.

      I mean, we'll find out when it hits SCOTUS. I honestly don't know how this one is going to rule.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Holi ( 250190 )

        Where is the qualifier for "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you want that, be prepared to cough up a five digit minimum retainer.

          "the" ?

          No, it's plural.

          War powers is a good start.

          The Fifth Amendment is another.

          Then there's things like tariff powers and such.

          There is no reasonable argument that it can't be barred from import, and similarly for its content.

          The question is what, if any, compensation would have to be paid.

          And the Vth would allow outright seizing it and paying just value, even if nothing else applied. Wit

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      They've already won in court, a few times.

      • I dunno, we'll see. This is likely to hit the USSC.

        I don't know which way it will go but it certainly isn't "obvious" in either direction.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Banning a website is an obvious violation of the US first amendment. However, they're allowed to do that under specific circumstances. The relevant one here is security, but the courts to date have ruled that the government has not shown any actual evidence to support their security claims, nor demonstrated that a ban is the solution that addresses concerns with minimal infringement of rights.

          • From what I read they're not being banned, per se, but the goal is to force a sale to an American entity.

            I can see both sides of this and I'm undecided which way it should go constitutionally but I also don't have access to US intelligence information which presumably is what has Congress up in arms about them.

            In the meantime nothing has actually happened and they'll get their day in court.

            Even if it turns out the security claims are bogus and this is unconstitutional I still hypocritically wouldn't mind se

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jhoegl ( 638955 )
      It isnt unconstitutional to prevent a business that is harming your citizens from running in your country. That is called sovereignty.

      People have choices to go to, so the First Amendment is not being subverted here.
    • I don't see how it is unconstitutional for a government to request the owner of a public soap box remove it from the public square. The people can still grandstand and talk to each other in the public square, just not while standing on that soap box.

      Calling it 'obvious' makes it an op-ed piece and clickbait. Also says a lot about the author Mike Masnick.

  • Why buy TikTok? (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Thursday May 16, 2024 @06:13PM (#64477847)

    It doesn't make money. It exists to funnel information to the PRC and possibly to inflict damage to the social fabric of competing nations.

    If someone thinks they can make a profit cloning TikTok, let them try. Vine already went under.

    • It's got users and lots of them and they seem to be very active on the platform. If TikTok was just another SV startup company this would be expected, grow the platform, figure out how to monetize it later.

      Of course you correctly point out that TikTok (in my opinion this is pretty clear) doesn't really care about the financials because China has other uses for it. If this guy is true to his word maybe he doesn't really either or he thinks this is a winning move.

      About Vine though https://twitter.com/elonm [twitter.com]

    • It doesn't make money. [b]It exists to funnel information[/b] to the PRC and possibly to inflict damage to the social fabric of competing nations.

      If someone thinks they can make a profit cloning TikTok, let them try. Vine already went under.

      The answer is within the question. It isn't necessarily about profit. At least not in the "I can directly charge the users" sense. But - for instance - imagine what kind of blackmail material you could derive by say... pointing an LLM at it. If PRC finds value in the information in there, others can too. Heck, there's precedent for US law-enforcement agencies to throw money at companies who spy on US citizens... because that way they aren't spying on US citizens.

      • It's reasonable to assume that an American-owned TikTok (or competitor) would be getting national security letters from the NSA.

      • Unless you are keeping the option open to go to (cold) war against the United States a massive criminal exploitation of the data doesn't make a lot of sense.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      I don't know why McCourt wants to buy it either. Unless there's a parking lot in front of corporate HQ.

      For those who don't know, McCourt is the guy who bought the LA Dodgers and damn near ran them into the ground.

    • But you can buy it, take it public, and a few months after the IPO and issuance of new shares including yourself. Sell those shares and turn the company to anyone else (call it stepping down) while taking that share money as pure profit and moving on to another business scam.
  • Can we just ban it already and be done with it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 )

      Can we just ban it already and be done with it.

      Disagree. The best outcome would be that Elon Musk buys it, runs it into the ground along with The Artist Formerly Known as Twitter, he goes bankrupt, both sites are shut down, and the populace realizes that social media for more than socializing with actual friends and family is damaging to society, causing the rest to shut down, and finally, finally, Slashdot returns to being a shining example of what discourse can be.

      • "and finally, finally, Slashdot returns to being a shining example of what discourse can be."

        That can't happen while the white supremacists are emboldened by the cryptocucks who put their business name in the spam filter, and formerly put "Nazi" in there too so they could shelter them.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Twitter and TikTok have some utility, which it would be tragic if we lose. For example, the recent coverage of the genocide in Gaza has made it the first time in history where we have uncensored, real-time information about what is actually happening on the ground.

        Not only has it got the truth out, it's changed the way mainstream news sources report it. The jarring difference between how they were reporting and what people were seeing on TikTok forced some of them to change the way they report it.

    • Can we just ban it already and be done with it.

      The Trump administration tried. But because they did it in response to a prank pulled by TikTok users on one of Trump's rallies they were able to make a successful first amendment defense.

  • TechDirt Link (Score:3)

    by pixelpusher220 ( 529617 ) on Thursday May 16, 2024 @06:17PM (#64477859)
    link [techdirt.com]

  • I belive Project Liberty are some of the folks behind the KOSA bill (Kids Online Safety Act) which the EFF notes is fundementally a censorship and surveillance bill

    "The heart of the bill is a “Duty of Care” that the government will force on a huge number of websites, apps, social networks, messaging forums, and online video games. KOSA will compel even the smallest online forums to take action against content that politicians believe will cause minors “anxiety,” “depression,

  • Billionaires don't decentalize things (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday May 16, 2024 @06:36PM (#64477901)
    that's like asking Skoora the Gentle Shark not to eat you [youtube.com]. It's not in their nature.

  • How long before the Chinese government says "Fuck off, this is our data" again? Or will they not even bother to respond?

  • This is a money making venture and nothing further.

  • That for decades, the idea that Israel controls our politicians was written off as a Nazi conspiracy theory.

    Then 10/7 happened, TikTok became the go-to platform for posting unfiltered anti-Israel content and suddenly both parties were roused to their feet in frothing outrage like their Mossad handlers gave them a midnight calling reminding them that they know what they did at Epstein's private getaway.

    Same people who lamented muh freedumbz, muh libertayz, muh big gubmint, muh neo-Fashizm under Trump, turned

    • To be honest, half of those politicians turned against TikTok some 4 years ago when one Trump's rally was wrecked by some TikTok posts. The other half probably understood at the time this could happen to them too. Also, there has to be years of complaints from US intelligence agencies unable to spy on citizens there.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You haven't been paying attention. Efforts to ban TikTok predate 10/7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      Nice try at trolling, +1 for effort.

    • Not sure what you want to say.

      Tik Tok is an asian platform.

      I live in Thailand.

      Plenty of Asians work in Israel, Gaza and surroundings,

      Over 100 Thai got killed in the first attacks, over 100 Thai got hold hostage and partly got freed by special forces teams. Thai Air Force and Thai Airways flew out the rescued people.

      Do you really think Thailand is the only country that had losses?

      Obviously TikTok is full with messages about Gaza and the war around Israel. Members of my extended family died there.

      People in US

    • That for decades, the idea that Israel controls our politicians was written off as a Nazi conspiracy theory.

      Um ... when you are the one ranting against your mental version of "the joos", that makes you the nazi, doofus.

      Yes, in the end, we usually stick with the only civilized country in the region. (Despite the best efforts of many democrats.)

      As opposed to the countries all around it, you know, the ones that you guys stole the whole "handmaid tale" vibe from. The ones that actually do all the things that you accuse your political opponents of.

      • > the only civilized country in the region.

        Nobody believes civilized countries have multiple classes of people with different sets of human rights.

        And if you say, "but what about Country X," I am likely to agree with you that it is uncivilized.

    • The ban was in the works long before, it's not like X is ADL's greatest friend at the moment.

    • "Conspiracy Theory" is a phrase (spell) that means, "shut up or be ostracized!"

      The history of Humanity is a very long list of conspiracies.

      And *everybody* knows this.

      #DADA

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by EmoryM ( 2726097 )
      they got the call

  • The biggest threat from Tik Tok is that a one-party, Communist totalitarian regime controls it and can and most assuredly does use it to funnel propaganda favorable to it – and, just as importantly, to suppress anything that puts it in a bad light – in a repetitive, psychologically palatable, almost subliminal form to the populace of its adversary – you, me, us.

    • The 5 yuan army on every major online forum works well enough, location data and social network based profiling is much more important.

      Stasi had nothing on social networking apps with default location access, greatest spy tool in history.

  • Who exactly did you think was going to buy a huge company ... someone without money?

    Who would you prefer to buy it ... the government?

  • move forward with the obviously unconstitutional and counterproductive plan

    this is the same constitution thats been amended how many times? its hardly set in stone is it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      Sure, so first get 2/3 of both Houses to make the XXVIII Amendent being "lol no TikToks!", then ban them.

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