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Just 10 days before the U.S. ban on TikTok goes into effect, businessman Frank McCourt’s internet advocacy nonprofit Project Liberty announced Thursday it has submitted a proposal to buy the social media site from Chinese technology company ByteDance.
Project Liberty and its partners, known as “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” would restructure the app to exist on an American-owned platform and prioritize users’ digital safety, the project said in a statement.
“We’ve put forward a proposal to ByteDance to realize Project Liberty’s vision for a reimagined TikTok – one built on an American-made tech stack that puts people first,” McCourt, Project Liberty’s founder, said in the statement. “By keeping the platform alive without relying on the current TikTok algorithm and avoiding a ban, millions of Americans can continue to enjoy the platform.”
A Project Liberty spokesperson said the nonprofit was not disclosing the financial terms of the offer but confirmed that ByteDance has received the proposal.
CNBC has reached out to TikTok for comment.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the ban, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last April, on Friday. ByteDance has repeatedly refused to sell TikTok and appealed the legislation on First Amendment grounds.
The case has worked its way through the judicial system. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the law on Dec. 6, writing that the government’s national security justifications for the ban were sufficiently compelling.
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 earnings in just one month, and that more than 7 million U.S. 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 allows users more control of their data, as part of Project Liberty’s mission to build a more user-empowered internet.
The initiative partners with investment banking group Guggenheim Securities and law firm Kirkland & Ellis. Its backers include digital safety advocates, investor Kevin O’Leary and World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
