Former Dodgers owner organizing bid to buy TikTok

Former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt says he’s organizing a bid to purchase TikTok.

McCourt is putting the bid together through his organization Project Liberty, which has been described as an initiative to create a new open-source decentralized internet.

Among those contributing in Project Liberty’s TikTok bid include global investment firm Guggenheim Securities, law firm Kirkland & Ellis, and several “world-renowned technologists, academics, community leaders, parents and engaged citizens.”

TikTok is currently owned and operated by ByteDance, a Chinese internet technology company that has faced accusations of surveilling users, censoring content and creating national security risks.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a law that would require ByteDance to sell its lucrative platform or be banned in the United States. The company has until next January to find a buyer, but company officials have said there are no plans to sell.

If the company were to change its tune and McCourt’s bid proved successful, the polarizing business magnate says the goal would be to migrate the massively popular social media and short-form video platform to a new “digital open-source protocol.”

“The foundation of our digital infrastructure is broken, and it’s time to fix it,” said McCourt in a press release issued Wednesday. “We can, and must, do more to safeguard the health and well-being of our children, families, democracy and society. We see this potential acquisition as an incredible opportunity to catalyze an alternative to the current tech model that has colonized the internet.”

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McCourt says Project Liberty would bring together digital experts and community partners to “preserve and enhance” the TikTok experience by giving users more control and access to their data and how it’s used.

Supporters of the bid include Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist and New York Times bestselling author; David Clark, senior research scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, a crucial component of the internet we know today.

“The web I invented was to provide power and value to individuals, which they do not have at the moment,” Berners-Lee said in the release. “Users should have an ability to control their own data, to share it with other people and organizations as they choose.”

He suggested that migrating TikTok to an open internet would provide better privacy, user mental health and “data sovereignty.”

McCourt is well known in the Los Angeles area, having owned the L.A. Dodgers from 2004 to 2012 when he was forced by Major League Baseball to sell the team due to concerns about the franchise’s financial stability.

McCourt sold the Dodgers for a then-record $2 billion to a group consisting of former Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson, former MLB executive Stan Kasten and Guggenheim Partners — the global investment firm that is the parent of Guggenheim Securities, which is a member of Project Liberty’s TikTok bid.

Another of the billionaire’s endeavors in the Los Angeles area is the Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit project, also known as the Dodger Stadium gondola.

The 1.2-mile aerial skyway would connect the stadium to Union Station and Chinatown at Los Angeles State Historic Park.

The project has faced scrutiny by some environmental groups, as well as those who live in the Chinatown neighborhood who are concerned about traffic and parking impacts the gondola could bring to the area once completed.

McCourt has also faced some scrutiny over the project due to his continued financial stake in the land surrounding his former stadium, which some have theorized may be ripe for redevelopment if the gondola project moves forward.

The project was put on pause in March after the Los Angeles City Council declared that the proposal needed more studying to fully evaluate its impact to the region.

Project Liberty says updates on its TikTok bid can be found online at projectliberty.io.

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