Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, the company was unable to secure a deal about did Microsoft buy TikTok because it insisted on owning the social video app’s US operations, data, source code, and algorithms.
How did Microsoft buy TikTok and resolved issue?
A few hours after Microsoft said Sunday afternoon that TikTok’s owners, Beijing-based byteDance, rejected Microsoft and Walmart’s bid for TikTok for a projected $20 billion to $30 billion, it’s one of the specifics that surfaced overnight.
To avoid an outright sale of how did Microsoft buy TikTok in the U.S., the Chinese business made a plan that makes Oracle a “trusted technology partner,” apparently to escape the pressure from the Trump administration to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations.
ByteDance’s connections to the Chinese government were one of the main reasons why Microsoft desired complete control over the TikTok platform. The capacity of TikTok to participate in propaganda, censorship, and disinformation operations was of particular concern to Microsoft, as underlined in an Australian Strategic Policy Institute research released on September 8th.
However, whereas social media platforms throughout the world have adopted a cautious approach to content regulation, TikTok has become the first prominent social media platform to use heavy-handed content moderation measures,” the ASPI research stated in its findings. ‘TikTok is now a formidable political player with a worldwide reach thanks to its capacity to secretly manage information flows,’ according to the report.
China and Microsoft limitations and algorithms
It would have needed a tremendous amount of technical and logistical work even if a Microsoft purchase could have met the new Chinese export limitations on TikTok data and algorithms. An individual who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the case said that Redmond had no choice but to act in this manner, given the harm to the company’s reputation.
In an interview with the New York Times, Microsoft President Brad Smith also raised worries about misinformation and China’s access to TikTok’s data.
As of now, no information has been released about the alternate ByteDance proposal and the technology relationship with Oracle; therefore, it is unclear if the plan would meet President Trump’s worries. If ByteDance maintains ownership as how did Microsoft buy TikTok in the United States, the president has vowed to impose a ban on the app. Because of an executive order issued by President Trump, the deadline for acquisition was extended from the planned date of September 15 to September 20.
Why did Microsoft buy TikTok and its collaboration Bytedance?
There is now an administration examination of the idea made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin this morning on CNBC. Our technical teams will be meeting with Oracle soon in order to discuss our concerns about security, and I will just say that we need to make sure that the code is safe, that Americans’ personal data is safe, and that the phones are safe.
People involved with the conversations said how did Microsoft buy TikTok by fitting in the mould of Microsoft purchases like Minecraft, LinkedIn, and GitHub since it had an engaged user base and an attractive technical platform. TikTok would have been a great fit for Microsoft since it would have provided a supply of social media data to power Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.
Although Microsoft’s unsuccessful effort to acquire Yahoo for more than $44 billion in 2008 was one of the biggest acquisitions in Microsoft’s history, the TikTok acquisition would have been one of the smallest, maybe even rivaling or even surpassing the $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016.
