Frank McCourt , the billionaire real estate mogul and former proprietor of the Los Angeles Dodgers , is presently work on a bid to grease one’s palms TikTok , according to reports from several reputable news retail store . And while it remains to be seen whether TikTok ’s parent company ByteDance will agree to a sale to anyone , McCourt ’s background in utopian technical school advocacy puddle him an interesting figure to participate the wash .
The U.S. Congress passed legislationin Marchthat will wedge TikTok to be sold or face a full ban in the U.S. , ostensibly over interior security worry . ByteDance is based in China and bipartisan mortarboard of the New Cold War take a firm stand Beijing is capable of supervise and manipulating data on TikTok , supposedly brainwashing the 170 million Americans who presently use the app .
And that ’s wherepotential buyersnow come in , including investor groups lead by people like former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin , world show host Kevin O’Leary , and now Frank McCourt .
Frank McCourt speaks onstage during Unfinished Live at The Shed on 10 December 2024, in New York City.Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Unfinished Live (Getty Images)
“ We need all the capital to be value - aligned [ around ] a new and in effect adaptation of the internet , where individual are respected and they own and control their identity and their datum , ” McCourt toldSemafor .
McCourt ’s rather utopian vision of the internet is n’t just the ramblings of a billionaire kook . He create an first step in 2021 call Project Liberty that advocate for heart-to-heart internet protocols and has the patronage of some magnanimous names in the human beings of engineering science . Tim Berners - Lee , the creator of the web , is quoted in Semafor ’s latest clause praising McCourt , saying that he will , “ embrace the decisive values of concealment , data sovereignty , and user mental wellness . ”
McCourt has also written a book , titledOur grownup Fight : Reclaiming Liberty , Humanity , and gravitas in the Digital Age , released in March , put down out his case for humanise the cyberspace . It starts , McCourt insists , by reimagining the infrastructure of the vane with unexampled open protocols .
But the heavy question among all of this : Will ByteDance even deal TikTok to American investors ? At this degree , it seems unbelievable . TikTok file a lawsuit last week to block the legislating on First Amendment grounds and the technical school company makes a middling compelling case . With roughly half the U.S. population currently using the app , it would indeed be cool down to the delivery of gazillion if TikTok was dead taken away .
But as we all know , laws are phony and any court in the state can rationalize the most hypocritical ruling as being a issue of principle . The U.S. spend the past two tenner shaming other body politic for ban American websites when other nation tell they had national security department concerns . Now it ’s our turn to ban apps we do n’t like , only because we got outplayed at our own game . Whether bozo like McCourt can crack up TikTok amid all this confusion remains to be seen .
ByteDanceKevinTikTokTim Berners - Lee
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , scientific discipline , and culture news show in your inbox daily .
newsworthiness from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
