Report: ByteDance Will Shut TikTok Down Before It Will Sell

ByteDance is reportedly ready to go with the nuclear option, preferring to shut down TikTok than sell the social media platform.

President Biden signed a bill that gives ByteDance a deadline to either offload TikTok’s US operations or be banned. According to Reuters, the Chinese company doesn’t see selling TikTok as an option, and would choose to shut it down if legal options to fight the ban fail.

At the heart of the issue are the algorithms TikTok uses for recommendations. The algorithms are crucial to ByteDance’s overall business, meaning there is no way to sell TikTok and include the algorithms, and the platform loses most of its value without them.

The outlet also reports that shutting TikTok down will have a negligible impact on ByteDance’s overall business, since TikTok is still a “loss-making app.”