TikTok is preparing a clone of its recommendation algorithm after all, sources told Reuters.
The social media platform is reportedly developing an algorithm independent of ByteDance, its Chinese parent company. The project began late last year before the TikTok ban bill passed. It involves separating millions of lines of code and will likely take over a year. A source told Reuters that the process is slow because each line of code must be reviewed.
Hundreds of engineers at TikTok and ByteDance in the U.S. and China have undertaken the task of building a code independent of ByteDance and removing any links to Chinese users.
TikTok denied Reuters’ claims in a post on Twitter / X. The company wrote, “The Reuters story published today is misleading and factually inaccurate.” However, it did not clarify what is misleading and factually inaccurate about the reporting. “As we said in our court filing, the ‘qualified divestiture’ demanded by the Act to allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally. And certainly not on the 270-day timeline required by the Act,” continued the post.
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The outcome of the new code could go two ways: either its separation from ByteDance and Chinese users will make TikTok acceptable to U.S. lawmakers, or it will make it easier for ByteDance to sell.
Previously, TikTok tried to stop the impending ban by proposing moving U.S. user data from China to be stored by Oracle, a U.S. company, an initiative called Project Texas. It failed to appeal to U.S. lawmakers. In ByteDance’s lawsuit over the TikTok ban, it claimed that transferring the social media platform’s “millions of lines” of code to a new owner would be impossible and that it would not sell its recommendation algorithm.
TikTok intends to fight the ban in the courts, and if you want to know how that might play out, Mashable has got you covered.
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