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Just 10 days before the US ban on TikTok takes effect, businessman Frank McCourt’s internet advocacy nonprofit Project Freedom announced on Thursday that it has submitted a proposal to buy the social media site from Chinese technology company ByteDance.
Project Liberty and its partners, known as “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” would restructure the app to exist on a US-owned platform and prioritize users’ digital security, the project said. statement.
“We pitched to ByteDance to realize Project Liberty’s vision for a reimagined TikTok — one built on an American technology stack that puts people first,” McCourt, the founder of Project Liberty, said in a statement. “By keeping the platform alive without relying on the current TikTok algorithm and avoiding a ban, millions of Americans can continue to enjoy the platform.”
A spokesperson for Project Liberty said the nonprofit was not disclosing the financial terms of the offer, but confirmed that ByteDance had received the proposal.
CNBC has reached out to TikTok for comment.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the ban signed last April, on Friday, by President Joe Biden. ByteDance has repeatedly refused to sell TikTok and appealed the law on First Amendment grounds.
The case went through the judicial system. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the law on Dec. 6, writing that the government’s national security justifications for the ban were sufficiently compelling.
On December 9 court filingTikTok said the ban would cost US small businesses and social media creators $1.3 billion in revenue and earnings in just one month, and that more than 7 million US users do business on TikTok.
The ban, known as the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by a Foreign Enemy Act, prohibits the distribution and maintenance of an app while it is owned by China.
The People’s Bid for TikTok aims to migrate TikTok to an open source platform that gives users more control over their data, as part of Project Liberty’s mission to build a more user-empowered internet.
The initiative works with the investment banking group Guggenheim Securities and the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. Its backers include digital security advocates, investor Kevin O’Leary and World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
