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Just ten days before the US ban on TikTok takes effect, businessman Frank McCourt’s Internet advocacy group Project Liberty announced Thursday that it had submitted a proposal to purchase the site of social media to the Chinese technology company ByteDance.
The Liberty Project and its partners, known as “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” would restructure the app to exist on a U.S. platform and prioritize users’ digital safety, the project said in a statement. press release. statement.
“We submitted a proposal to ByteDance to realize Project Liberty’s vision for a reimagined TikTok – built on an American-made technology stack that puts people first,” McCourt, founder of Project Liberty, said in the release. “By keeping the platform alive without relying on TikTok’s current algorithm and avoiding a ban, millions of Americans can continue to enjoy the platform.”
A Project Liberty spokesperson said the group was not disclosing the financial terms of the offer, but confirmed that ByteDance had received the proposal.
CNBC has contacted TikTok for comment.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Friday on the ban, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last April. ByteDance has repeatedly refused to sell TikTok and appealed the legislation on the grounds of the First Amendment.
The case made its way through the court system. Most recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the law on December 6, writing that the government’s national security justifications for the ban were sufficiently convincing.
In a Dec. 9 court filing, TikTok said the ban would cost U.S. small businesses and social media creators $1.3 billion in revenue and profits in just one month, and that more than 7 million American users do business on TikTok.
The ban, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, prohibits the distribution and maintenance of the app while it is under Chinese ownership.
The People’s Bid for TikTok aims to migrate TikTok to an open source platform that gives users more control over their data, part of Project Liberty’s mission to create a more empowered internet for users.
The initiative partners with investment banking group Guggenheim Securities and law firm Kirkland & Ellis. Its backers include digital security advocates, investor Kevin O’Leary and World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
Correction: An earlier version of this article described the Liberty Project as a nonprofit organization. It’s not.
