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The used goods problem with buying TikTok

Successful social media acquisitions require keeping both talent and technology in place. Neither is likely to happen in a deal for the Chinese app.

China will most likely block any transfer of TikTok’s celebrated algorithm, and it is unclear what would happen with the firm’s top US-based engineering talent in the event of a sale, the writer says.

Successful social media acquisitions require keeping both talent and technology in place.

PHOTO: AFP

Dave Lee

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ByteDance’s Hail Mary legal effort to

avoid selling or shutting down TikTok

relies on convincing a judge the social network will disappear entirely, squashing the free speech rights of millions of Americans.

The drawback to that argument is that the merest whiff of a deal to offload the app to new owners would fatally undermine the case. No free speech is lost if TikTok merely changes hands, a judge might say.

The used goods problem with buying TikTok

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