FBI Director Chris Wray is raising national security concerns about TikTok, warning Friday that control of the popular video sharing app is in the hands of a Chinese government “that doesn’t share our values.” Wray said the FBI was concerned that the Chinese had the ability to control the app’s recommendation algorithm, “which allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.” He also asserted that China could use the app to collect data on its users that could be used for traditional espionage operations. “All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States. That should concern us,” Wray told an audience at the Uni...
Ask music business executives to characterize their relationship with TikTok and the response is typically a variation of, “It’s complicated,” as one major-label executive puts it. As the short-form video streaming platform continues to dominate pop culture — last September, it claimed 1 billion monthly active users globally, a figure that has surely ballooned in the 13 months since — it has continued to draw the ire of the music industry for its low payouts to rights holders, even as labels, managers and publishers increasingly rely on the platform to market singles and break artists. But as TikTok’s parent company ByteDance explores an expansion of its fledgling music streaming service Resso — currently only available in India, Indonesia and Brazil — into new territories, another respons...
TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. could spend as much as $3 billion to buy back shares from investors after the company scrapped its plans to go public this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing a memo sent to ByteDance investors. The China-based company offered to repurchase investors’ existing shares for up to $176.94 per share, a move that would value ByteDance at close to $300 billion, much higher than previously reported, according to the WSJ. While the company did not provide a reason for the share repurchase in its memo, the move would provide liquidity to some of its long-term shareholders, offering some recompense for the scrapped IPO plans, the WSJ reported. ByteDance indefinitely shelved plans for an initial public offering in the U.S. or Hong Kon...
Doing business in China got tougher in 2021 after government agencies handed down new rules and levied fines against some well-known companies. For evidence this has made investing in Chinese companies more complicated, look no further than Tencent Music Entertainment’s annual report released Tuesday. All publicly traded companies’ financial statements include risk factors mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission to help investors understand companies’ unique challenges and possible negative outcomes if things go south. TME’s previous annual reports have listed numerous risk factors, ranging from licensing third-party content to its corporate structure. It’s a long list that just got longer. The new risk factors in TME’s 2022 annual report are further evidence of the challenges f...
TikTok owner Bytedance is set to bring in screen time caps for Douyin, the Chinese version of the phenomenally successful app, for users under 14 years old as Beijing continues to crack down on the influence of tech companies in the country. According to a report in Bloomberg, Douyin made significant changes to its ‘youth’ mode last week, limiting daily usage time to a maximum of 40 minutes for those aged under 14 and also banning them from accessing the app from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. The company has now also rolled out a new youth-orientated version on Douyin, dubbed Xiao Qu Xing or ‘Little Fun Star,’ that, via its algorithm, promotes and prioritizes more educational videos and allows users to like but not upload their own clips. You Deserve to Make...
ByteDance has selected Oracle as its partner for a deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S., a source familiar with the talks confirms to The Hollywood Reporter. The decision comes as ByteDance has rejected a bid by Microsoft that earlier this summer was seen as the likely option for the company as it looked to avoid a shutdown of the popular social media app amid increased tensions between the U.S. and China. Microsoft confirmed that its bid had been rejected in a statement on its corporate blog on Sunday night. “We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” the company wrote. “To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, priv...
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