ByteDance Says It Won't Sell U.S. TikTok Business

By Sherry Qin

China's ByteDance said it won't sell its U.S. TikTok business, a day after U.S. President Biden signed legislation to force a sale or ban of the popular Chinese-controlled social-video app.

Beijing-based ByteDance, owner of the app with some 170 million U.S. users, said late Thursday on Toutiao, a media platform it owns, that it has no plans to sell TikTok. The company was responding to a report by The Information that it is considering scenarios for selling a majority stake in TikTok's U.S. business without the algorithm it uses to recommend videos to users.

ByteDance said in the post that foreign-media reports that it is exploring the sale of TikTok "are untrue."

U.S. lawmakers, who passed the bill Saturday in the House and late Tuesday in the Senate, have said they were worried about how TikTok could affect national security, including the potential for China to collect intelligence on U.S. users or spread Beijing's favored messages to users regarding sensitive topics such as the Israel-Hamas war.

TikTok has repeatedly said that it has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government and would refuse any such requests.

The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Beijing has signaled that it won't allow a forced sale of TikTok, limiting options for the app's owners even as buyers begin lining up to bid for its U.S. operations.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 26, 2024 02:05 ET (06:05 GMT)

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