What Billionaire Frank McCourt Would Actually Do With TikTok

December 13, 2024:

People don’t know what they don’t have until you sell it to them, right? And I’m very convinced that when people see that there’s a version of TikTok 2.0, where they curate their algorithm, they’re in charge, and they own themselves and parse out their data and get value for it, people will clamor for that. They’ll rush to that. It’s a much better model.

We could debate this all day long, but we’d be the one taking the risk. We are the ones putting up the money and saying that this will work. ByteDance can shut it down, or they can get the money for the platform and wish us luck.

Right now, TikTok is associated with specific types of content, such as dances, silly videos, and a younger audience. Do you intend for the new version of TikTok to maintain that focus?

Well, I think that the Gen Z user base is critical to keep it engaged, because young people create culture. And TikTok is a culture creator, if there ever was one. But I do want to add that recent surveys show that for 47 percent of Gen Zs, although they use it multiple hours a day, they wish it had never been invented. Because of the highly addictive nature, and how they feel sometimes right after spending so much time. So let’s create a healthier version, where it’s a super polished app, is easy to use, and looks very similar to the way it looks now. But the users are in charge.

Do you believe that giving teenagers full control without a manipulative algorithm will help them reduce their screen time?

I think once you put control in the hands of individuals, people will make choices for themselves. Some will make good choices, some will make bad choices. What’s really important, though, is when you’re talking about very young people, parents need to have some ability to be a parent. Young people need to be mentored. They need to be parented, and it’s very difficult now for parents to compete [with the algorithm].

So we need to step back. TikTok is awesome. We want to keep it alive. Let’s build a better version of it. But you know what: Healthy teenagers are awesome, too. Being a good parent is awesome, too. Human individual rights and protecting them are awesome, too. Protecting American citizens is awesome, too.

If TikTok’s Supreme Court appeal takes some time, will you still want to buy the app, even if that is months or years from now?

Yeah, we’re lined up to do this whenever it happens. What’s just great serendipity to me here is that this legislation happened and TikTok may be up for grabs. Because moving 170 million people over to a new stack will catalyze this alternative upgraded internet very quickly. Right now, one of the big problems we have is that we debate things about this internet, but until there’s another choice, people are kind of stuck.

I compare this to large scale, human physical migration. There’re people that live in very difficult places—in the case of my ancestors, there was a famine—they really want to go somewhere else. But there’s a second condition required, and that is you need a place to go. Right now, people are getting wise to the harms of the current Internet, and the fact that they’re being taken advantage of and not being rewarded properly or fairly. But nothing’s gonna happen unless there’s an alternative and a place for them to go.

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