Nearly three years after the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner didn’t sell the company to American investors, the video app is once again facing an existential threat.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will appear later Thursday before US lawmakers, many of whom want the app banned in the United States because of the risk they say it presents to national security. The clamor for a sale is growing louder again.
But an outright divestment isn’t in the cards, according to analysts and legal experts, not least because the Chinese government views TikTok’s technology as sensitive and has taken steps since 2020 to ensure it can veto any sale by its Beijing-based owner, ByteDance.
At issue is who owns the keys to TikTok’s algorithms and the vast troves of data collected from the 150 million people in the United States who use the app each month.
The Chinese government considers some advanced technology, including content recommendation algorithms, to be critical to its national interest. In December, Chinese officials proposed tightening the rules that govern the sale of that technology to foreign buyers.
