ByteDance hands-off in TikTok battle
App’s US team leads campaign to counter bill aimed at sale or ban, sources say
The Chinese parent of TikTok has kept a safe distance from the troubles facing its short-video app in the United States, leaving the response to the local team and Singaporean CEO Chew Shou Zi as they face a possible legal battle against a forced sale or a ban, according to people briefed on the matter.
ByteDance’s strategy is markedly different from four years ago when then US president Donald Trump attempted to force a sale of TikTok to American investors. The Beijing-based firm got directly involved after its then recently hired COO and TikTok CEO, Kevin Mayer, who had been poached from Walt Disney, quit after just three months.
But now, TikTok’s US team, under the guidance of Chew, is more weathered and resourceful. Its pushback against a bill seeking to kick the popular app off Apple’s and Google’s app stores has been much more aggressive.
ByteDance has almost entirely delegated the job of dealing with American political pressure to the US team, according to a source close to the matter.
In recent weeks, ByteDance’s only response was a brief denial of a Wall Street Journal report that company co-founder Zhang Yiming had discussed a sale of TikTok to potential buyers.
Neither ByteDance nor TikTok responded to requests for comment yesterday.
TikTok has made a big effort to highlight its relevance to US users and merchants. It started running television ads this week, promoting the hashtag #KeepTikTok in multiple states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada and Ohio. The campaign involves a diverse group of TikTok influencers and merchants who discuss the importance of the app.
The move came weeks after the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that sought to force ByteDance to divest TikTok, described as a “foreign-adversary-controlled application”, for the app to continue normal operations.
TikTok had also spent more than US$100,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads in opposition to the bill, The New York Times reported, citing Meta Platforms’ Ad Library.
External ads are just the latest front in a battle that started last month in the TikTok app itself, where the company sent push notifications to users urging them to call their congressional representatives to tell them to vote against the bill.
These efforts are already showing results. The bill, which would prevent app stores in the US from distributing TikTok in the country, started to lose momentum when it reached the Senate, which has not set a timeline for considering the legislation.
The Senate must pass its own version of the bill and reconcile it with the House version before it is sent to President Joe Biden, who has indicated he would sign it into law if it reached his desk.
TikTok’s push to get users to call Congress “is generally very correct”, said Thomas Liu, founder and CEO of consultancy Policy Nexus.
“In the US, citizens have the ‘right to petition’ to communicate their suggestions, issues, or demands to their members of Congress, which is a vital part of the American political system, and members of Congress generally value the opinions and demands of their constituents, considering the interests of the districts they represent.
“But the approach of sending in-app alerts may reinforce some existing concerns of some members of Congress because some US politicians may think the app can technically influence public opinion.”
He said TikTok could achieve the same aim in other ways, such as through public relations campaigns in traditional media or on other social media platforms.
TikTok ran TV ads when it faced a ban in 2020, but did not directly rally its users. At that time, ByteDance spoke out on the matter at least four times over two months.
It sued the Trump administration together with TikTok, and it clarified that ByteDance would remain in control of TikTok Global, a planning subsidiary jointly owned by Oracle and Walmart designed to avoid a ban, in an effort to prove the company was not, as Chinese internet users put it, “kneeling down too fast”.
Zhang, who was then still ByteDance’s chairman and CEO, personally addressed the issue in an interview with US magazine The Atlantic, in which he said he was not a member of the Communist Party.
Neither Zhang nor ByteDance co-founder Liang Rubo has spoken on the matter this year.
Chinese business news publication Caixin, citing sources familiar with the matter, has reported ByteDance would not sell TikTok.
It would be “impossible for ByteDance to sell TikTok within 180 days” and “it’s impossible for Zhang to divest”, Caixin has reported.