Trudeau acknowledges charges in Nijjar killing, calls for commitment to democracy
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance's overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent.
TikTok accounts for a small share of ByteDance's total revenues and daily active users, so the parent would rather have the app shut down in the U.S. in a worst case scenario than sell it to a potential American buyer, they said.
A shutdown would have limited impact on ByteDance's business while the company would not have to give up its core algorithm, said the sources, who declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
ByteDance declined to comment.
It said late on Thursday in a statement posted on Toutiao, a media platform it owns, that it had no plan to sell TikTok, in response to an article by The Information saying ByteDance is exploring scenarios for selling TikTok's U.S. business without the algorithm that recommends videos to TikTok users.
In response to a Reuters request for comment, a TikTok spokesperson referred to ByteDance's statement posted on Toutiao.
TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew said on Wednesday the social media company expects to win a legal challenge to block legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden that he said would ban its popular short video app used by 170 million Americans.
The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, is driven by widespread worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access Americans' data or use the app for surveillance.
Biden's signing sets a Jan. 19 deadline for a sale - one day before his term is poised to expire - but he could extend the deadline by three months if he determines privately owned ByteDance is making progress.
ByteDance does not publicly disclose its financial performance or the financial details of any of its units. The company continues to make most of its money in China, mainly from its other apps such as Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, separate sources have said.
The U.S. accounted for about 25 per cent of TikTok's overall revenues last year, said a separate source with direct knowledge.
Reuters interviewed more than half a dozen investment bankers who said it was tough to value how much TikTok is worth compared with like-for-like competitors Meta Platforms' META.O Facebook and Snap SNAP.N, as TikTok's financials are not widely available nor easy to access.
ByteDance's 2023 revenues rose to nearly $120 billion in 2023 from $80 billion in 2022, said two of the four sources. TikTok's daily active users in the U.S. also make up just about 5% of ByteDance's DAUs worldwide, said one of the sources.
TikTok shares the same core algorithms with ByteDance domestic apps like short video platform Douyin, three of the sources said. Its algorithms are considered better than ByteDance rivals such as Tencent and Xiaohongshu, said one of them.
It would be impossible to divest TikTok with its algorithms as their intellectual property license is registered under ByteDance in China and thus difficult to disentangle from the parent company, said the sources.
Moreover, separating the algorithms from TikTok's U.S. assets would be an extremely complicated procedure and ByteDance is unlikely to consider that option, the sources added.
ByteDance also would not agree to sell one of its most valuable assets – its "secret source" - to rivals, said the four sources, referring to the TikTok algorithm.
In 2020, the Trump administration sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat but was blocked by the courts. The short-form video app has since faced partial and attempted bans in the U.S. and other countries.
China indicated it would be likely to reject a forced divestment of the TikTok app during a U.S. congressional hearing in March last year.
"China will firmly oppose it (the forced sale of TikTok)," said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Commerce at a news conference in Beijing in late March 2023.
"The sale or divestiture of TikTok involves technology export and must go through administrative licensing procedures in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations."
China in 2020 unveiled the Export Control Law and the final text extended the definition of "controlled items" from prior drafts. According to state media, the amendment ensures that the exports of algorithms, source codes and similar data are subject to an approval process.
Excluding algorithms, TikTok's main assets include user data and product operations and management, said two of the people.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has expressed interest in putting together an investor group to try to buy TikTok. ByteDance may struggle to attract any buyers for TikTok's U.S. assets excluding algorithms, the sources said.
ByteDance, backed by Sequoia Capital, Susquehanna International Group, KKR & Co KKR.N and General Atlantic among others, was valued at $268 billion in December when it offered to buy back around $5 billion worth of shares from investors, Reuters reported at the time.
(Reporting by Kane Wu and Julie Zhu; additional reporting by Josh Ye in Hong Kong, Sheila Dang in Austin, Texas and Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee, Jane Merriman and Jan Harvey)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Princess Anne paid tribute to veterans buried at a cemetery in British Columbia today, laying a wreath to honour the more than 2,500 military personnel and family members buried there.
Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, edging out Forever Young and Sierra Leone for the upset victory.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.