Can TikTok's owner afford to lose its killer app? - BBC News

Sell or be banned - TikTok's US operations, by some estimates, could fetch up to $100bn.

15 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, The US is TikTok's largest market, with its 170m users accounting for about 17% of its global usersBy Kelly NgBBC NewsUS lawmakers could vote this weekend on a second bill in as many months that corners TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance with a stark choice - sell its US business or be banned.

Fears that data about millions of Americans could land in China's hands have driven Congressional efforts to split TikTok from the Beijing-based company.

TikTok has said ByteDance "is not an agent of China or any other country". And ByteDance insists it's not a Chinese firm, pointing to the many global investment firms that own 60% of it.

But the app's extraordinary success in the US has made it yet another flashpoint between Washington and Beijing.

Some 170 million Americans spend at least an hour of their day swiping on TikTok. That includes about six in 10 teenagers, a fifth of whom say they are on it "almost constantly", according to Pew Research Center. More than 40% of US users say it's their regular source of news.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-68681786

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