TikTok’s true inten­tions are belied by the hun­dreds of bil­lions it’s leav­ing on the table

Con­trary to the claims of Tik­Tok itself, a new law does not ban the social media behe­moth out­right from the coun­try. That’s what law­mak­ers said was con­tained in the mea­sure that Pres­i­dent Joe Biden signed recent­ly, along with mil­i­tary aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Tai­wan.
Rather, the Pro­tect­ing Amer­i­cans from For­eign Adver­sary Con­trolled Appli­ca­tions Act would ban social media plat­forms in 270 days to 360 days. But only if they are con­trolled by a for­eign adver­sary, as defined by either Title X of the Unit­ed States Code — which specif­i­cal­ly des­ig­nates North Korea, Rus­sia, Iran, and Chi­na as “cov­ered nations” — or by the pres­i­dent.
In oth­er words, only if Tik­Tok is owned and oper­at­ed by ByteDance or any oth­er com­pa­ny based in one of the four “cov­ered nations” will the plat­form be banned. Prac­ti­cal­ly speak­ing, ByteDance has near­ly a year to sell Tik­Tok to a buy­er in lit­er­al­ly any of the oth­er 191 coun­tries on Earth.
Except Tik­Tok con­tin­ues to insist that the PAFACA i …