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Top technologists believe they can reproduce TikTok’s algorithm within a year of a potential U.S. government ban of the wildly popular video-sharing app, according to Sen. Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chairman told reporters on Tuesday he is taking an interest in the app’s future, and he hopes China-based parent company ByteDance sells the U.S. operations of the platform before facing a ban required by law.
Mr. Warner said “technology experts, brand-name people in this country,” think it “could take roughly nine, six to 12 months, to kind of recreate a similar algorithm so you could still get a lot of the creativity that comes on TikTok.”
President Biden signed restrictions on TikTok into law earlier this year, requiring the app’s owners to sell the platform or face a ban in the U.S. The move was hailed by national security experts but has sparked anger and opposition from many of the estimated 175 million Americans who use the app.
Mr. Warner said he has sympathizes with people who have come to depend on TikTok to make a living and wants U.S. investors to apply more pressure on ByteDance to separate the app from its China base.
“I have a beef with a lot of the other American platforms as well,” Mr. Warner said at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. “The reason why TikTok is different is because ultimately, at the end of the day, the [Chinese Communist Party], I think, will have access to that data that’s scraped.”
And, he added, “you could not create a more powerful propaganda tool.”
Mr. Warner said he is closely following investors considering offers to purchase TikTok, and he is unsure whether the Chinese government would allow the app to gain independence and declare the platform a tech success story.
TikTok is challenging the new restrictions aiming to force its sale in federal court. Asked about Mr. Warner’s comments, the company referred The Washington Times to its petition to a federal appeals court saying divestiture was not possible commercially, technologically or legally.
“There is no question: the [law] will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere,” TikTok told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Mr. Warner said he intends to push American investors to separate the platform from China, beyond the reach of the country’s Communist leadership.
“We want to simply have it not controlled by the CCP,” Mr. Warner said.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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