The Chinese parent firm of TikTok, ByteDance, has stated that it has no plans to sell the company in the wake of a US law that requires it to sell the immensely popular video app or face bans in the US.
“Foreign media reports that ByteDance is exploring the sale of TikTok are untrue,” the Beijing-based company said in a statement on Toutiao, a news aggregation app that it owns and is popular in mainland China.
“ByteDance doesn’t have any plan to sell TikTok,” it said.
The comment was made in direct response to a story published by the Information on Thursday, which claimed that Bytedance was considering selling TikTok’s US division without the algorithm that serves as the platform’s recommendation system for videos.
Bytedance included screen grabs from the Information story, which referenced three sources with knowledge of the discussions, with the statement.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden signed the sell-or-ban legislation into law.
The US and other Western nations are concerned about the extent of the Chinese Communist Party’s control over ByteDance and the data it contains, given Beijing’s increasing hold over private enterprises.
TikTok has consistently refuted assertions that ByteDance is under the influence of the Chinese government.
“We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,” said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week.
“The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side… rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere.”
Chew added: “Politicians may say otherwise, but don’t get confused. Many who sponsored the bill admit a TikTok ban is the ultimate goal.”
According to Reuters on Thursday, if the parent company of TikTok is unable to succeed in court against the legislation, they “would prefer” to shut down the app in the US.
The US division of the short-form video app “accounts for a small share of ByteDance’s total revenues and daily active users,” according to Reuters, citing its sources.
TikTok is also under fire amidst a legal investigation by the European Commission, as the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform, said it is voluntarily halting the incentives programme for its new TikTok Lite app.
