ByteDance would rather shut down TikTok than sell it, Reuters reports

ByteDance would prefer shutting downTikTok rather than sell it should the company exhaust all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., Kane Wu and Julie Zhu of Reuters report, citing four sources. 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, sources close to ByteDance told Reuters. TikTok accounts for a small share of ByteDance’s total revenue 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, the people said. Publicly traded companies in the social media space that compete with TikTok include Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL), Pinterest (PINS) and Snap (SNAP).