Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook has said in an interview in the ‘Women in Tech, Media, and Finance’ conference that the demand for a ban on TikTok by the US government is something quite unusual.
She said that the government’s order to ban TikTok came across as something very unusual, and it has never happened before in business history. Also, she made it an important point to note that Facebook does not have anything to do with this matter because Facebook did not ask for this ban on TikTok.
Last month only, The Wall Street Journal had reported that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expressed his concerns about TikTok with lawmakers in the US. But that happened way before the US President and his administration started cornering TikTok by accusing it of invasively collecting American users’ data and then forwarding it to the Chinese government, citing TikTok as a national security threat. This further led Donald Trump to threaten ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, and he issued an ultimatum to ByteDance to sell off TikTok’s US operation to any investor before 15th September, otherwise, all its businesses in the US will be banned. This deadline was later extended to 12th November.
Now, the important point to note here is that Zuckerberg had argued that TikTok is not committed to freedom of expression and it poses a threat to the technological supremacy in the US. Facebook continuously gets accused of one thing after another, and Mark Zuckerberg argued that the US government should be more concerned about the app related to the Chinese government rather than focusing so much on their own Facebook.
He has put forward such arguments in different other meetings with several senators too, and it looks like he kind of instigated the US government to direct all other authorities to shift their focus towards TikTok, which eventually brought on TikTok’s doom in the US as it was alleged to be a national security threat.
Now, the COO of Facebook is trying to white-wash Mark Zuckerberg’s actions that he or Facebook never wanted the government to ban TikTok. But what else were they expecting when they were so actively planting seeds of suspicion time and again? Well! It is all about business, and it seems that everything is fair when it comes to matters of money!
However, this story does not end here. After Trump’s threats, now the latest news is making rounds that ByteDance may eventually come to an alternate setting with the US government, which would prevent the complete sale of TikTok in the US.
So, there is a lot more that is happening and this statement by the COO of Facebook does not really make any difference now.
Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images
Read next: TikTok may come to another settlement after all and it may not have to sell off its US operations completely
She said that the government’s order to ban TikTok came across as something very unusual, and it has never happened before in business history. Also, she made it an important point to note that Facebook does not have anything to do with this matter because Facebook did not ask for this ban on TikTok.
Last month only, The Wall Street Journal had reported that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expressed his concerns about TikTok with lawmakers in the US. But that happened way before the US President and his administration started cornering TikTok by accusing it of invasively collecting American users’ data and then forwarding it to the Chinese government, citing TikTok as a national security threat. This further led Donald Trump to threaten ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, and he issued an ultimatum to ByteDance to sell off TikTok’s US operation to any investor before 15th September, otherwise, all its businesses in the US will be banned. This deadline was later extended to 12th November.
Now, the important point to note here is that Zuckerberg had argued that TikTok is not committed to freedom of expression and it poses a threat to the technological supremacy in the US. Facebook continuously gets accused of one thing after another, and Mark Zuckerberg argued that the US government should be more concerned about the app related to the Chinese government rather than focusing so much on their own Facebook.
He has put forward such arguments in different other meetings with several senators too, and it looks like he kind of instigated the US government to direct all other authorities to shift their focus towards TikTok, which eventually brought on TikTok’s doom in the US as it was alleged to be a national security threat.
Now, the COO of Facebook is trying to white-wash Mark Zuckerberg’s actions that he or Facebook never wanted the government to ban TikTok. But what else were they expecting when they were so actively planting seeds of suspicion time and again? Well! It is all about business, and it seems that everything is fair when it comes to matters of money!
However, this story does not end here. After Trump’s threats, now the latest news is making rounds that ByteDance may eventually come to an alternate setting with the US government, which would prevent the complete sale of TikTok in the US.
So, there is a lot more that is happening and this statement by the COO of Facebook does not really make any difference now.
Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images
Read next: TikTok may come to another settlement after all and it may not have to sell off its US operations completely
