This feels like an incredibly low valuation for what has been billed as such an important commodity.
It's a forced takeover at (metaphorical, for now) gunpoint, fair valuation has nothing to do with it.
TikTok Sold for $14B
21–30 of 49 posts
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#22According to Bloomberg, TikTok will still get about 50% of the profits from the US operations
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-26/bytedance... (archive: https://archive.ph/4m7Ms)
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#23Incredible that this happened. AIPAC and the ADL targeted Tiktok because it didn't restrict Palestine content while the other social media did. And so the US Congress killed it. Absolutely incredible first amendment work from the Land of the Free.
Honestly I wonder if it's more than that. China has preemptively banned basically all major US social media sites (and many tech companies) to the benefit of their own local brands. Those brands are now entering the US market, and so I could see why the US might want to try and block them, although I suppose I wish social media sites were just allowed to operate in each respective country.
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does this even need an executive order?
Because the illusion that they used to call "capitalism" is revealing itself for what it really was, i.e. just an illusion.
Socialism (of the authoritarian centralized sort) is state ownership of the means of production.
Fascism is private ownership but state control of the means of production through political and economic pressure, or if that fails by direct edict. The state gets all the benefits of owning the means of production but none of the responsibility, and also gets to pick winners. The winners it picks are generally people aligned with the regime, so over time the business world gets stacked with partisans.
(I'm talking about the economic component of fascism, which usually comes with other ideological components like ultra-reactionary social doctrines and extreme nationalism.)
Capitalism in the free market sense is private ownership and private control, with businesses having a significant amount of independence from the state. This independence is both economic and ideological, e.g. free enterprises openly criticizing or even opposing the political class. Fascism seeks to stamp this out and force business to align with state authority.
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#25There is no universe in which TikTok is only worth $14B.
First of all it's just TikTok's US operations. Secondly, those US operations have the price significantly depressed by risk that TikTok gets shut down without a deal.
So the "TikTok ban" effectively gave TikTok's US operations to US oligarchs for a steal.
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#26TrumpTok is gonna be grooooooooooooosssssssssssssssssss. I don't for a second think that they're going to take what is, by their admission, the most sophisticated and far-reaching propaganda engine in human history and carefully balance the conflicting duty of delivering maximum value while not taking advantage of people.
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#27Without the algorithm, TikTok is not TikTok. When Tiktok was banned in India, everyone tried to recreate it, include Instagram. Everyone failed to get anywhere close to TikTok for you page. Once the new algorithm is live, expect massive backlash.
Probably for the better, its incredibly damaging to young brains.
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#28Without the algorithm, TikTok is not TikTok. When Tiktok was banned in India, everyone tried to recreate it, include Instagram. Everyone failed to get anywhere close to TikTok for you page. Once the new algorithm is live, expect massive backlash.
They’re licensing the TikTok algorithm, although it may diverge in the future
Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#29The title here "TikTok Sold for $14B" is completely incorrect TikTok was not sold. This is an announcement of an executive order endorsing a proposal to sell TikTok. > No representatives from ByteDance were present at the signing, and the company hasn’t acknowledged that a transaction is taking place. No purchase price was mentioned, and there’s no indication that the Chinese government has made changes to laws that…
Why does this even need an executive order?
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Re: TikTok Sold for $14B
#30A more apt title would be "US government pretends TikTok was sold"
Is it any less sold than real property seized by a municipality or state?
Sure the sale didn't take place via well trodden and codified procedure but it still happened. At the end of the day might makes right in this kind of thing, as unfortunate as it may be.