TikTok is clearly not having the time of its life right now. With the Chinese video-sharing app getting banned from India and losing its majority chunk of users, it is on the verge of losing another major market -- the US.?
Tomorrow was the deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations to a company in the country or bid goodbye to the US market. Microsoft and Oracle were looking to acquire a part of the company in the US and now it has made a decision in the nick of time. The deal has been struck with tech giant Oracle.?
Microsoft announced its defeat stating, ¡°ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok¡¯s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok¡¯s users while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement. We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas.¡±?
According to a report by FT, Bytedance and Oracle have entered into an agreement that doesn¡¯t include the complete sale of short video platform. In fact, under the deal, Oracle will be termed as ByteDance¡¯s technology partner and will look after and store US user data, as per a report by Reuters. Oracle is also in discussions to take a stake in TikTok¡¯s US assets, according to sources.
Alternatively, reports by Chinese media CGTN that it won¡¯t be selling its source code to any of the US buyers.?
In case you didn¡¯t know, its source code is instrumental in bringing the video-sharing platform to success. It is, however, important to note that Bytedance hasn¡¯t really accepted or rejected the claims, stating that it won¡¯t comment on market rumours.?