TikTok is Chinese social media app which has been trending for a while now. TikTok is used in virtually all countries except for India. The company has been enjoying good PR as well as tangible profit until it got in the middle of a geo-political fight between the two economic giant and world power China and the United States.
Trump has been on the heat against China even before the coronavirus pandemic and this made the country had a lot of political dispute and economic wars in the last few years of Trumps administration. China has been accused several things from using their products to steal citizens data, to producing counterfeit products, determining people’s choices, and putting them in partial slavery due to communist ruling.
Byte Dance is in a big mess currently as the company is being faced with a ban threat by the United States or forced to sell off its US operations segment of the country. This ban is built based on security bridge, as the company is being accused of sharing data of US with the communist of China. The company knows how much it gets as revenue from the United States and the company is willing to bargain with the United State government but the government is only interested in the company selling off its US part of the company to a US company.
I feel this is more than security. For me, this is more of a geo-political war than a ban based on security. The company has said it severally that they do not share any information with the Chinese communist government. Microsoft has been discussing buying the short video sharing app in four countries, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Although it does not look prospective that the two companies will agree.
Microsoft has a lot to gain from this TikTok merger and although it has to compete with other TikTok market, it will be very difficult for Microsoft to hit other TikTok market but on a contrary, the US market is a large market.