Latest news with #ProjectLiberty
Entrepreneur
30-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Frank McCourt Jr. Interview: Why I Want to Buy TikTok
Frank McCourt Jr. says buying TikTok would help him bring the U.S. one step closer to a new Internet. Here's what he envisions. TikTok's algorithm has been infamously called "addictive," with research finding that it is "highly engaging and emotionally rewarding in nature," which has led to compulsive (and lucrative) user numbers. It's also why the algorithm is a main point in the ongoing saga of the app potentially being banned in the U.S. if it isn't sold soon. But billionaire Frank McCourt Jr., 71, tells Entrepreneur in a new interview that he and his business partners are "completely ready to buy TikTok" — and they "don't need or want the algorithm." The former L.A. Dodgers owner and investor, who's worth $2.4 billion, said that China has "made it very clear" they're not selling it. "So we're in a good position if there is a transaction," McCourt said. Related: Emma Grede Dropped Out of School at 16. Now the Skims Boss Runs a $4 Billion Empire — Here's How. After last year's law passed requiring TikTok to separate from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, or face a permanent ban in the U.S., the potential to own TikTok has attracted a slew of interest from notable people and companies. (After multiple extensions, the new deadline is June 19.) McCourt announced his $20 billion offer for TikTok in May 2024, calling it The People's Bid for TikTok. He made the bid through Project Liberty, the $500 million initiative he founded in 2021 that focuses on creating a better Internet by giving users control over how they share their data. Over time, other public figures joined his bid, the most notable being Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary in January and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in March. But so far, there haven't been any updates. "We're on standby," McCourt said. Other bidders for TikTok include AI startup Perplexity, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, mobile advertising company AppLovin, and Amazon. McCourt said O'Leary called him after talking to all the potential bidders and determining that The People's Bid was ahead of the rest. Ohanian connected with McCourt through a mutual friend, and also ended up publicly backing the bid's mission. Frank McCourt Jr. Why Frank McCourt's Bid for TikTok Is Different McCourt is working towards creating a new Internet, and TikTok is a stepping stone to get there. McCourt's bid is focused on the social media app's 170 million users. He wants to migrate those millions of people and their data over to an open-source platform that both preserves TikTok's user experience while also using an American-built tech stack. The basis of this platform is called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), which Project Liberty developed and first made public in 2021. DSNP stores individual data in a profile that a user can transport across a network of social apps. Users on the platform can take their connections and content, their personal data, from one DSNP app to another and dictate the terms of its use. "We're advocating for a new, better, advanced Internet where individuals own and control their identity and their data," McCourt said. "We're in charge, and our social information is ours to share with others as we see fit." Right now, the only social media app that uses DSNP is MeWe, which has more than 20 million users globally and began offering members the option to sign in with DSNP in September 2022. Now, McCourt wants to bring the protocol to TikTok's 170 million users as well. "We need to scale DSNP for it to be a true alternative, and that's what TikTok would do," McCourt said. McCourt outlined a future where social apps will be interoperable, and users will be able to tap into their network no matter which social app they are logged into. So, someone on MeWe could talk to someone on TikTok, or share a link with them without logging into an account just for that one specific app. Related: 3 Simple Steps to Start Making Money on TikTok McCourt compared the situation to how phone numbers are now interoperable. A person using AT&T can call someone on Verizon without worrying about whether their call will go through. "Imagine an Internet where that's the case, where you can be on one app and I could be on another, and we'll be able to share information," McCourt said. McCourt noted that gathering $20 billion for the bid was "quite easy" because "people saw the value" of the offer. And if The People's Bid doesn't end up being selected, McCourt isn't ruling out developing a competing social media app. "We may," he said. "At some point, we just need to move forward."
CNBC
15-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Frank McCourt: Project Liberty's bid for TikTok is aligned with U.S. national security priorities
Frank McCourt, Project Liberty founder, joins CNBC's 'Money Movers' to discuss his bid for TikTok, whether TikTok may be a part of trade negotiations, and more.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive: TikTok bidder calls $600 million EU fine latest example in ‘avalanche of evidence' social media companies control too much user data
Project Liberty, one of the principal bidders for TikTok, said a $600 million EU fine on the platform was further evidence of social media's poor track record of protecting user data. Led by Frank McCourt, Project Liberty has long been an advocate of reforming how social media companies gather data on users. Project Liberty, the consortium of investors led by billionaire Frank McCourt that is bidding for TikTok, said the platform's recent $600 million fine for violating EU privacy laws was further evidence of social media's harmful data collection practices. 'This is the latest story in the avalanche of evidence showing that individuals—not Big Tech platforms—should control their own data,' Project Liberty President Tomicah Tilleman told Fortune in an exclusive statement. Project Liberty and McCourt first announced their bid for TikTok in January ahead of a deadline that would have forced the platform to be sold to an American owner. President Donald Trump eventually extended that deadline, but McCourt's bid and the data security issues surrounding TikTok remain. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld a law forcing TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to an American company. The law passed because of concerns the Chinese government might have access to U.S. user data, potentially representing a national security threat. On Friday, Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which regulates TikTok because its European headquarters is in Ireland, fined the company $600 million for failing to protect the personal data of EU users from being accessed by Chinese authorities. TikTok allegedly violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU's strict data privacy law that limits how large platforms can share and store user information. TikTok said it will appeal the charges and denied violating the EU's law. TikTok 'has never received a request for European user data from the Chinese authorities, and has never provided European user data to them,' the company said in a statement. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment about Project Liberty's statement made outside of working hours in Europe. Tilleman sees European and U.S. TikTok users facing similar threats to their personal data. 'Americans and Europeans both deserve digital platforms that are committed to protecting privacy, upholding national security, and putting people first,' he said. Project Liberty and McCourt have long advocated for reforming the internet and specifically social media companies writ large so that collecting user data is no longer the norm. Instead, the group, which dubbed its bid 'The People's Bid,' believes that users should opt in to which data they would like to share with social media platforms. The current version of social media allows companies to collect reams of data about users, which then gets used for targeted advertisements. Project Liberty sees acquiring TikTok and its roughly 170 million U.S. as a means to jumpstart its new vision of the internet. 'The People's Bid for TikTok is the best way to complete a sale and transition the platform to an American-made tech stack that gives people control of their online experience,' Tilleman said. So far, Project Liberty's bid includes support from several well-known investors. Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian joined the group in March, and Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary was one of the original investors. Trump has twice extended the deadline for a TikTok sale since its original January deadline passed. The current deadline is now in mid-June. However, any forced sale, which the Chinese government opposes, could now possibly be tied up in a broader trade agreement between the U.S. and China. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The man who wants to buy TikTok and buck Big Tech — and why he thinks Utah is leading the way
On Friday morning, the Trump administration extended the deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok. For another 75 days, the video-sharing app will remain as is for its 170 million United States users — unless the extension is challenged. President Donald Trump announced the extension on social media, reasoning that more time is needed to make a deal between Bytedance and an American buyer. 'My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,' he said. 'We do not want TikTok to 'go dark.' We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal.' This is the second time Trump has postponed the app's sale or ban in the U.S. Last year, Congress signed a law that said ByteDance has to sell TikTok, or the app would be shut down. The Supreme Court upheld the law in December, making Trump's executive orders to keep TikTok running legally questionable. Several American investors and businesses have put forward bids to buy the app, including the billionaire former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, founder of the nonprofit Project Liberty. In a sit-down interview on Friday with Deseret News, McCourt and Tomicah Tillemann, Project Liberty's president, said despite the news, they continue to believe their bid is the only one that will comply with the law. McCourt was in Salt Lake City to attend the signing of several bills that aim to protect children online, including one that gives users the right to own, control and manage their data, ensuring that they can permanently delete their own information. This right, which McCourt called a 'human right,' is the focus of Project Liberty, a nonprofit that aims to create a new information superhighway that is 'healthier' and 'safer' for its users. The bipartisan effort to pry TikTok from ByteDance stemmed from national security concerns over the app potentially sharing user-collected data with the Chinese government. McCourt has put together a bid to buy TikTok through Project Liberty, which they're calling the 'People's Bid.' Under their ownership, TikTok would give users more freedom to choose what content they see and what they do with their personal data. McCourt said Project Liberty's mission is to empower its users rather than exploit them. Founded in 2019, the initiative aims to challenge the power currently held by Big Tech. 'This isn't a tech issue; this is actually a human rights issue,' McCourt told the Deseret News. 'This is an issue about choice. This is an issue about autonomy.' The internet should be a place for users to 'create and innovate and have a chance to build things of value, as opposed to the world that exists now, which is that there are a few companies that own it all — and worse, they own us,' he said. In the U.S., adults use TikTok more than any other social media app, averaging a little over 53 minutes daily, and more than half of users are between the ages of 18 and 34. The platform made $10 billion in revenue in just the U.S. last year. Tillemann related the world's acceptance of algorithmic instant gratification addiction to the 20th-century obsession with cigarettes. Back then, 'Everyone had gotten accustomed to that reality, even though it was really, really bad for people, but within a relatively short period of time, that changed, and you saw greater awareness,' he said, adding that the change was prompted by growing public awareness, policymaking and regulation. 'People were able to move beyond addictions and decide they wanted a much better, healthier ecosystem in which they were going to raise their kids and live a life,' he said. 'And I think there are some interesting analogs there to the dynamics that we see about social media.' McCourt believes the cultural shift on attitudes about social media has already begun, but like cigarettes, the current status quo will eventually become a full-fledged 'taboo.' Apps like TikTok that are 'surveilling us and grabbing our attention are going to be viewed not just as unlawful through public policy but culturally unacceptable,' he said. Before McCourt and Tillemann sat down with the Deseret News, they spent Friday morning at the state Capitol attending Gov. Spencer Cox's ceremonial signing of online safety bills, which Project Liberty aided Utah lawmakers in creating. McCourt celebrated Utah as the first state to hold big tech accountable through legislative action, including the Digital Choice Act, which will allow Utah app users the right to own, control and manage what he calls our 'Digital DNA.' Both McCourt and Tillemann emphasized that all eyes are on Utah to see how tech companies will react to the new laws: comply or litigate. 'In the last few weeks, since this law passed the Senate, we've had conversations not only with lawmakers all over the United States, but with policymakers all over the world,' Tillemann said. 'They are very, very focused on what's happened in Utah. They recognize that this is a big deal, and they are looking for models that will help them solve a challenge that's facing every open society on the planet.'
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gov. Cox signs three bills impacting child safety online
In the Utah Capitol's Gold Room on Friday morning, Gov. Spencer Cox ceremoniously signed three bills regarding tech safety. He was joined by the bills' sponsors and individuals and groups who helped push the legislation forward. Before inviting the bill sponsors to speak about their legislation, Cox talked more generally about what these new laws aim to achieve. He described their larger purpose as returning power back to parents and ensuring safety for children online. 'I truly believe it's our free will that's being taken away from us,' Cox said. 'And we know it's going to get worse with the advent of AI. These social graphs will know more about us than we know about ourselves.' Cox continued, 'It's tearing us apart, the fabric of our country, it's making us hate each other.' SB142: App Store Accountability Act — requires app developers to verify a user's age category and confirm that the user's parent gave yearly parental consent to the app store. It also allows parents of harmed minors to sue developers or the app store if they violate these provisions. HB418: Data Sharing Amendments — gives users the right to own, control and manage their data, ensuring that they can permanently delete their own information. SB178: Devices in Public Schools — this bill prohibits students from using their cellphones, smartwatches and other nonschool provided technology during classroom hours. The sponsor of the data sharing amendments bill, Rep. Doug Fiefia, R-Herriman, stated his legislation is 'a turning point' for Utahns. 'It's where we shift power back to where it should have always remained,' Fiefia said. Invited to stand behind the governor with Fiefia and other bill helpers was Frank McCourt, the founder of Project Liberty. His nonprofit aided Fiefia in pushing the legislation and has grown since its establishment in 2021 to shift power from large tech companies to users. The project consists of 'technologists, academics, policymakers and citizens committed to building a better internet — where the data is ours to manage, the platforms are ours to govern, and the power is ours to reclaim," per Project Liberty's site. Before signing, Cox thanked Fiefia for his bill, adding that it is 'the first of its kind in the country.″ Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, spoke next on his App Store Accountability Act. He began by describing the battle to get his legislation through the House and Senate. 'Everyone in this room knows, and every first year law school student knows, that kids can't enter contracts,' Weiler said. But the way app stores have worked for decades goes against this. Weiler explained, 'Every time someone downloads an app or an app changes, and it pops up and says do you accept these terms and conditions, we're allowing our 11-year-olds, our 13-year-olds and our 15-year-olds to enter into binding contracts.' Many of these contracts, Weiler said, are asking for permission to collect the child's data, sometimes to access their microphone and camera. Weiler compared privacy levels to when he was a child, and stated, 'Now we have app developers accessing our kids in the middle of the night in their bedrooms ... and this bill says, 'this is not OK.'' Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, and Rep. Douglas Welton, R-Payson, spoke lastly on their bill banning cellphone from classrooms. Fillmore began by saying, Welton, who works as a school teacher in Payson, was initially opposed to the bill when it was first proposed in 2023. 'Just watching how it effects kids in classrooms changed his mind.' The most dangerous thing cellphones do in classrooms is distract kids from their education, Fillmore said. Welton also took a moment to speak. 'We spend millions of dollars on mental health, counselors, a lot of things like that, and it costs a lot of money, and it seems like one of the basic thing we could do to cut down on that expense and increase mental health for our students is to eliminate cellphones in schools,' he said. While signing, Cox said he hopes the next step taken with this bill is to increase it from just a ban during class time to a ban from the start to the end of the school day.
