Microsoft and TitTok’s owner have paused the negotiation for Microsoft to acquire the short video app sensation. Microsoft is an enterprise king with one of the most critical platforms in modern commerce – the Windows. But Microsoft, despite owning LinkedIn, is yet to hold one of those precious mobile age properties. Apple runs the iOS world. Google keeps the inhabitants of Android happy. Facebook has the dual universe of WhatsApp and Instagram. Microsoft hopes TikTok would be it. But President Trump is not buying it: he has noted that he would use executive order to ban TikTok in the United States.
Microsoft Corp. has paused negotiations to buy the U.S. operations of the video-sharing app TikTok after President Trump said late Friday he opposed the deal, according to people familiar with the matter.
The president’s statements spurred TikTok to make additional concessions, including agreeing to add as many as 10,000 jobs in the U.S. over the next three years, but it isn’t clear if those will alter Mr. Trump’s stance, one of the people said.
This is a very complicated matter which may rewire global commerce if indeed Trump goes ahead to ban TikTok. With that precedence in American democracy, expect some countries to have the boldness to enter a season of apps bans. Indeed, nothing would stop Cameroon, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, etc from banning WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, and they would justify it with whatever reasons Trump has used to ban TikTok. This is not to say that the U.S. does not need to return digital fire to China. But if the U.S. does it, expect the world to ride on that action and change the ordinance.
Banning TiKTok will hurt the U.S. and its companies around the world. The best thing for Trump is to demand that ByteDance, TikTok owner, divests the app in the U.S. market. It makes no sense to ban the app when the company has indicated interest to sell the U.S. subsidiary.
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President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters he will act soon to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok from the United States.
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Trump did not specify whether he will act through an executive order, or another method such as a designation, according to NBC News.
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Trump’s comments come as it was reported Friday that Microsoft has held talks to buy the TikTok video-sharing mobile app from Chinese owner ByteDance.
Largely, if Trump bans TikTok when the company has clarified that U.S. users data are stored in the U.S. and that it is ready to sell to Microsoft, it would open American companies to political attacks in many countries. The ideal of America is freedom of speech, and though TikTok is coming from China, this company has offered a truce by agreeing to divest to Microsoft. There is no need to kill the brand especially in the age when everyone is accusing Facebook of complete dominance. TikTok is really the only hope to create a competitive environment for Facebook in U.S.. U.S. does not need to score an own goal.
In association football, an own goal occurs when a player causes the ball to go into their own team’s goal, resulting in a goal being scored for the opposition. … The defending player who scored the own goal is personally “credited” with the goal as part of the statistical abstract of the game.
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China has become a hot potato in the US, so anything linked to it is viewed with suspicion or trepidation. But again, we are having this discussion because it’s the US, China does this sort of thing with ease, but once the US does same against the Chinese, the latter seems to win more sympathy.
The line between national security and market dominance has become very blurry, so you can easily flip one for the other, anytime you feel uncomfortable.
And as to the prospect of small countries banning apps here and there, they must first have a dominant app that connects their citizens to the global community, else they could find themselves on the road to self-destruction.
I still think Trump is not likely to ban TikTok just like that, and if Microsoft is to finally acquire it, the price must have fallen somewhat, because it’s now looking more or less like a forced sale.
Let’s see what happens.