‘TikTok buyout aims to eliminate FB rival’

THE plan to force TikTok US business to be divested could be a ruse for the US government and tech giants including Facebook to take down the short video platform and allow Facebook to fill the void, industry insiders told the Global Times Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that TikTok would be banned in the US unless it is gobbled up by Microsoft or another "very American" company by September 15, and suggested the US Treasury should get a big cut of the proceeds.

"The buyout plan could be just a ruse under which the US government and capital behind US tech giants have conspired, that is to oust TikTok from the US market completely," Richard Ma, an internet industry insider, told the Global Times Tuesday.

"As one of the promoters that might be deeply involved in the play to take down

TikTok, Facebook sits behind the scenes witnessing the "death threat" that the US government has issued to TikTok, and then will take the initiative to grab its market share when TikTok loses its users," Ma said.

Facebook has now provided financial rewards to TikTok content creators to attract them to its own short-form video feature Reels, which is tied to Instagram which it also owns. Meanwhile, TikTok content creators are actively looking for alternatives to reduce their own risks, media reports said.

Wang Chao, founder of the Wenyuan Institute for Politics and Economics, a Beijingbased think tank, told the Global Times that given the indecent means Facebook has pursued to crack down on its rivals then ultimately offering to buy them out, it intends to gobble up TikTok as well.