tech
Huawei announces winner of Facebook Quiz campaign
Huawei has recently announced the winner of Digital Bangladesh Mela Quiz campaign that was arranged on Huawei Bangladesh Facebook page.
The participant who has answered all 10 questions correctly and met other requirements have been selected as the winners as per the criteria announced for this quiz.
The quiz campaign was organized in January of this year with an announcement that whoever answered all the questions correctly following the guidelines would be selected as the winner.
The competition got more than 11 thousand responses against 10 quizzes.
Md. Ali Hossain, from Nabiganj upazila of Habiganj, came out victorious as the sole winner of this competition after fulfilling all requirements.
The winner has been awarded a GT3 Classic Smart Watch.
Tanvir Ahmed, Head of Media, Huawei South Asia, said, “Technology will play a vital role in building our smart Bangladesh.
"We always want to share our insights and knowledge for a better ICT ecosystem. With that inspiration, we share diversified information and resources for our audiences on all our social media platforms," he added.
BWIGF: Ensuring women have a say in internet governance
The Bangladesh Internet Governance Forum (BIGF) and its special body the Bangladesh Women IGF (BWIGF) Saturday organised a day-long training workshop on governance in the capital.
The Bangladesh Women IGF works to ensure a gender perspective is included in the key debates around internet governance issues, such as content regulation, privacy, access, and freedom of expression.
It also aims to increase women's participation at the BIGF and IGF and related fora, support capacity building of gender advocates, and promote more effective linkages between local, regional and global initiatives on gender and information society.
Today's workshop helped the participants explore internet governance in different ways through several new ideas and discussions.
At the event, Afroza Haq Rina MP, an adviser to the Bangladesh Women IGF, called for ensuring affordable internet for all women to improve their lives and livelihoods.
Bangladesh Women IGF Secretary General Farha Mahmud Trina, former secretary Md Nasir Uddin Ahmed, AHM Bazlur Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication, Khaza Md Anas Khan, country manager of GIGABYTE Technology, BIGF Secretary General Mohammad Abdul Haq Anu, Shahnaz Sharmeen, chief reporter of Nagorik TV, and Shahnaz Munni, chief news editor of News 24 TV, were present.
realme C55 now available for pre-order
Youth-centric brand realme recently introduced realme C55, its latest addition to the Champion C-series, equipped with four segment-first features.
Now, realme fans can pre-order this device with attractive offers; as pre-orders began on April 2, according to a press release.
This phone is equipped with the first-ever 64MP AI camera in the segment, up to 16GB dynamic RAM, 33W Supervooc Charge and an Ultra Slim Sunshower design.
The pre-ordering procedure begins with visiting the https://realmebd.com/c55-prebook .
Upon clicking the link, a page will appear where the interested customer will need to fill out a form mentioning name, phone number, shop area, territory, shop name, phone variant and colour, then click “Pre-order now.”
Upon completion of the procedure, the customer will receive a confirmation text and call from a Realme customer service representative.
Afterwards, the customer will have to make a payment of Tk99 at the nearest realme outlet, as part of the confirmation process.
These pre-ordering customers will receive free screen/display protection and a replacement warranty for six months.
Moreover, they will also be subject to a cashback of up to Tk5000 upon replacing an old device on SWAP.
To top it off, the customers will also enjoy free internet data on Grameenphone, Robi and Banglalink. Pre-orders are available for the 6GB RAM/128GB ROM variant only.
Adding to all those, one lucky winner will receive a cash prize of Tk1 lakh and a few lucky customers chosen via lottery will also receive a Realme C55 for free.
Moreover, 1000 pre-ordering customers will receive a free Realme sports bottle. The winners will be selected through a lottery.
The phone is powered by 8GB dynamic RAM expandable up to 16GB, the device ensures a seamless experience and is available in two colours: Sunshower and Rainy Night – accounting for a premium and outstanding look.
TikTok's parent has a new app: What to know about Lemon8
As lawmakers debate whether to ban TikTok nationwide, its Chinese parent company has introduced a new app that's already getting some traction.
The app, called Lemon8, is likely to face some of the same scrutiny as TikTok, which has been dogged by claims the Chinese government could force its parent company ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or push misinformation on the platform.
TikTok maintains that hasn't happened. And it's attempting to convince lawmakers it can keep user data safe.
Meanwhile, ByteDance is pressing ahead with its expansion plans. Here's what you need to know about the company's new app:
WHAT IS LEMON8?
Lemon8 is a photo-based app that resembles a mixture of Instagram and Pinterest, and is sprinkled with videos that look like the ones posted on TikTok. Social marketing experts say the app is also reminiscent of the Chinese social media and e-commerce giant Xiaohongshu, which translates to "little red book."
Like TikTok, Lemon8's main feed features a "following" section that lets users look at content from creators they follow, as well as a "For You" section that recommends other posts. It also segments posts under different categories, like fashion, beauty and food, and allows users to explore content in other ways.
Similar to TikTok and other social media sites, Lemon8 collects user data, such as IP address, browsing history, device identifiers and other information.
Both the Apple and Google Play app stores list its owner as Heliophilia Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based company that shares the same address as ByteDance and TikTok.
HOW POPULAR IS IT?
Lemon8 was first launched in Asian markets in 2020 and has already made headway in countries like Thailand and Japan, with roughly 7.4 million and 5 million downloads respectively, according to the app analytics company data.ai.
It was introduced in the U.S. in February with little fanfare, but all that changed when media organizations started paying closer attention and some TikTok influencers began promoting it.
As of Sunday, the app had 290,000 downloads in the U.S., the vast majority of which happened in late March, according to data.ai. It's also listed as one of the most popular apps on Apple's app store.
Nicla Bartoli, the vice president of sales at Influencer Marketing Factory, said ByteDance reached out to her company in late February and gave a lengthy presentation about the app and how influencers can use it. She said the agency, which connects brands with influencers, is recommending that influencers try out the app but isn't doing the same with brands since Lemon8's user base is still relatively small.
It also remains to be seen if the app will take off more organically or flop. The last five years have been littered with social media platforms that got a lot of hype, only to vanish in the end, said Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer at the creative agency Mekanism. He pointed to examples like BeReal and Clubhouse, which garnered a lot of attention in the past two years before users turned their attention elsewhere.
"Social app success is difficult to achieve and harder to maintain," Gahan said.
WHAT HAS BYTEDANCE SAID ABOUT THE APP?
ByteDance did not reply to a request for an interview about how it plans to grow Lemon8. But the company's general counsel Erich Andersen noted in an interview with the Associated Press at a cybersecurity conference last week that it will continue to develop the app.
"We're obviously going to do our best with the Lemon8 app to comply with U.S. law and to make sure we do the right thing here," said Andersen, who also serves as TikTok's general counsel. "But I think we got a long way to go with that application — it's pretty much a startup phase."
As part of that work, ByteDance is already seeking job applicants for a few U.S.-based roles that will help grow the app's partnerships with influencers on beauty, food, health and other topics.
WHAT ELSE IS BYTEDANCE DOING?
Another app owned by ByteDance, called CapCut, is also listed on Apple's app store as one of the most popular apps in the U.S.
CapCut markets itself as an "all-in-one" video editing tool that allows users to cut or speed up their content, and do other things like add filters and music.
Data.ai, the app analytics company, said that app was released globally in April 2020, roughly a year after it was introduced in China. As of Sunday, the group said the editing tool had been downloaded 60 million times in the U.S. and 940 million globally.
ARE LAWMAKERS ALSO CONCERNED ABOUT THE OTHER APPS?
There is support for a bipartisan bill in the Senate, called the RESTRICT Act, that does not call out TikTok but would give the Commerce Department power to review and potentially restrict foreign threats to technology platforms. But it has faced some pushback from privacy advocates and ring-wing commentators who argue the legislation is too vague and could be abused.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, who sponsored the bill along with Republican Sen. John Thune, said in a prepared statement that the legislation would make it easier to go after other risky apps like Lemon8.
"For too long, our government has been playing a game of Whac-A-Mole when it comes to addressing the various foreign technology threats popping up all around us," said Warner, D-Va. "The RESTRICT Act would establish a risk-based, intelligence-informed process to evaluate and mitigate the risks posed by tech from adversarial nations, whether that be Huawei, TikTok, Lemon8, or the next viral technology product pushed by an authoritarian nation."
Are robot waiters the future of restaurant industry?
You may have already seen them in restaurants: waist-high machines that can greet guests, lead them to their tables, deliver food and drinks and ferry dirty dishes to the kitchen. Some have cat-like faces and even purr when you scratch their heads.
But are robot waiters the future? It's a question the restaurant industry is increasingly trying to answer.
Many think robot waiters are the solution to the industry's labor shortages. Sales of them have been growing rapidly in recent years, with tens of thousands now gliding through dining rooms worldwide.
"There's no doubt in my mind that this is where the world is going," said Dennis Reynolds, dean of the Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership at the University of Houston. The school's restaurant began using a robot in December, and Reynolds says it has eased the workload for human staff and made service more efficient.
But others say robot waiters aren't much more than a gimmick that have a long way to go before they can replace humans. They can't take orders, and many restaurants have steps, outdoor patios and other physical challenges they can't adapt to.
"Restaurants are pretty chaotic places, so it's very hard to insert automation in a way that is really productive," said Craig Le Clair, a vice president with the consulting company Forrester who studies automation.
Still, the robots are proliferating. Redwood City, California-based Bear Robotics introduced its Servi robot in 2021 and expects to have 10,000 deployed by the end of this year in 44 U.S. states and overseas. Shenzen, China-based Pudu Robotics, which was founded in 2016, has deployed more than 56,000 robots worldwide.
"Every restaurant chain is looking toward as much automation as possible," said Phil Zheng of Richtech Robotics, an Austin-based maker of robot servers. "People are going to see these everywhere in the next year or two."
Li Zhai was having trouble finding staff for Noodle Topia, his Madison Heights, Michigan, restaurant, in the summer of 2021, so he bought a BellaBot from Pudu Robotics. The robot was so successful he added two more; now, one robot leads diners to their seats while another delivers bowls of steaming noodles to tables. Employees pile dirty dishes onto a third robot to shuttle back to the kitchen.
Now, Zhai only needs three people to do the same volume of business that five or six people used to handle. And they save him money. A robot costs around $15,000, he said, but a person costs $5,000 to $6,000 per month.
Zhai said the robots give human servers more time to mingle with customers, which increases tips. And customers often post videos of the robots on social media that entice others to visit.
"Besides saving labor, the robots generate business," he said.
Interactions with human servers can vary. Betzy Giron Reynosa, who works with a BellaBot at The Sushi Factory in West Melbourne, Florida, said the robot can be a pain.
"You can't really tell it to move or anything," she said. She has also had customers who don't want to interact with it.
But overall the robot is a plus, she said. It saves her trips back and forth to the kitchen and gives her more time with customers.
Labor shortages accelerated the adoption of robots globally, Le Clair said. In the U.S., the restaurant industry employed 15 million people at the end of last year, but that was still 400,000 fewer than before the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association. In a recent survey, 62% of restaurant operators told the association they don't have enough employees to meet customer demand.
Pandemic-era concerns about hygiene and adoption of new technology like QR code menus also laid the ground for robots, said Karthik Namasivayam, director of hospitality business at Michigan State University's Broad College of Business.
"Once an operator begins to understand and work with one technology, other technologies become less daunting and will be much more readily accepted as we go forward," he said.
Namasivayam notes that public acceptance of robot servers is already high in Asia. Pizza Hut has robot servers in 1,000 restaurants in China, for example.
The U.S. was slower to adopt robots, but some chains are now testing them. Chick-fil-A is trying them at multiple U.S. locations, and says it's found that the robots give human employees more time to refresh drinks, clear tables and greet guests.
Marcus Merritt was surprised to see a robot server at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta recently. The robot didn't seem to be replacing staff, he said; he counted 13 employees in the store, and workers told him the robot helps service move a little faster. He was delighted that the robot told him to have a great day, and expects he'll see more robots when he goes out to eat.
"I think technology is part of our normal everyday now. Everybody has a cell phone, everybody uses some form of computer," said Merritt, who owns a marketing business. "It's a natural progression."
But not all chains have had success with robots.
Chili's introduced a robot server named Rita in 2020 and expanded the test to 61 U.S. restaurants before abruptly halting it last August. The chain found that Rita moved too slowly and got in the way of human servers. And 58% of guests surveyed said Rita didn't improve their overall experience.
Haidilao, a hot pot chain in China, began using robots a year ago to deliver food to diners' tables. But managers at several outlets said the robots haven't proved as reliable or cost-effective as human servers.
Wang Long, the manager of a Beijing outlet, said his two robots have both have broken down.
"We only used them now and then," Wang said. "It is a sort of concept thing and the machine can never replace humans."
Eventually, Namasivayam expects that a certain percentage of restaurants — maybe 30% — will continue to have human servers and be considered more luxurious, while the rest will lean more heavily on robots in the kitchen and in dining rooms. Economics are on the side of robots, he said; the cost of human labor will continue to rise, but technology costs will fall.
But that's not a future everyone wants to see. Saru Jayaraman, who advocates for higher pay for restaurant workers as president of One Fair Wage, said restaurants could easily solve their labor shortages if they just paid workers more.
"Humans don't go to a full-service restaurant to be served by technology," she said. "They go for the experience of themselves and the people they care about being served by a human."
Vivo V27e Review: Worth its price tag?
The Vivo V27e is one of the latest mid-range smartphones to come out of Vivo’s product lineup in 2023. With its sleek design, powerful specifications, and an array of features, the Vivo V27e has started gaining popularity among smartphone enthusiasts. This latest Vivo smartphone is currently available in Bangladesh. Let’s take a look at the specs, pros, cons, and price of Vivo V27e.
Key Features of Vivo V27e
Design
The Vivo V27e is undeniably one of the most attractive smartphones in the market today, with its sleek and elegant design. Its Glory Black color option is gorgeous, and the Lavender Purple variant stands out with its elegant look.
Despite its slim and lightweight build, measuring about 7.7 mm (Glory Black) or 7.8mm (Lavender Purple) thick and weighing 185 grams (Glory Black) or 186g (Lavender Purple). Therefore, this device is easy to manage with one hand.
Vivo V27e is built with composite plastic sheets. Not to mention, the plastic feel on its back panel is a downside in terms of aesthetics.
Read More: April 2023 New Release: Top 8 Upcoming Smartphones in Bangladesh
The usual ports and buttons are present on the Vivo V27e, including a USB-C 2.0 port, a hybrid dual nano-SIM card tray, and a single loudspeaker located at the bottom. The volume rocker and power button are on the phone's right side, while the fingerprint scanner is integrated into the screen.
Overall, the Vivo V27e is a stunning device that you would want to showcase with a clear case. It comes with a transparent case, a USB-A to USB-C cable, a 66W charger adapter, a SIM ejector tool, and some paperwork.
Display
The Vivo V27e boasts a large 6.62-inch AMOLED screen with moderately sized bezels, providing a maximized display that is neither too thin nor too thick. The device's AMOLED display, with a resolution of 1080 x 2400, delivers stunning and vivid colors with impressive detail sharpness, even when used under bright sunlight.
One of the standout features of the Vivo V27e's display is its 120Hz refresh rate, which offers smooth and seamless scrolling for a more fluid user experience. The device also features a punch-hole selfie camera, a more modern alternative to the traditional water drop notch design.
Read More: Samsung Galaxy A54 5G Review: Worth the price tag?
Overall, the Vivo V27e's display is a great feature for a mid-range device, delivering top-notch visuals and a smooth user experience.
Biden says it remains to be seen if AI is dangerous
President Joe Biden said Tuesday it remains to be seen if artificial intelligence is dangerous, but that he believes technology companies must ensure their products are safe before releasing them to the public.
Biden met with his council of advisers on science and technology about the risks and opportunities that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence pose for individual users and national security.
“AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but it also has to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security,” Biden told the group, which includes academics as well as executives from Microsoft and Google.
Artificial intelligence burst to the forefront in the national and global conversation in recent months after the release of the popular ChatGPT AI chatbot, which helped spark a race among tech giants to unveil similar tools, while raising ethical and societal concerns about technology that can generate convincing prose or imagery that looks like it's the work of humans.
While tech companies should always be responsible for the safety of their products, Biden's reminder reflects something new — the emergence of easy-to-use AI tools that can generate manipulative content and realistic-looking synthetic media known as deepfakes, said Rebecca Finley, CEO of the industry-backed Partnership on AI.
The White House said the Democratic president was using the AI meeting to “discuss the importance of protecting rights and safety to ensure responsible innovation and appropriate safeguards” and to reiterate his call for Congress to pass legislation to protect children and curtail data collection by technology companies.
Italy last week temporarily blocked ChatGPT over data privacy concerns, and European Union lawmakers have been negotiating the passage of new rules to limit high-risk AI products across the 27-nation bloc.
By contrast, “the U.S. has had more a laissez-faire approach to the commercial development of AI,” said Russell Wald, managing director of policy and society at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
Biden's Tuesday remarks won't likely change that, but Biden “is setting the stage for a national dialogue on the topic by elevating attention to AI, which is desperately needed,” Wald said.
The Biden administration last year unveiled a set of far-reaching goals aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of AI systems, including guidelines for how to protect people’s personal data and limit surveillance.
The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights notably did not set out specific enforcement actions, but instead was intended as a call to action for the U.S. government to safeguard digital and civil rights in an AI-fueled world.
Biden's council, known as PCAST, is composed of science, engineering, technology and medical experts and is co-chaired by the Cabinet-ranked director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar.
Asked if AI is dangerous, Biden said Tuesday, “It remains to be seen. Could be.”
Saudi Arabia’s Etidal finds 6mn extremist content on Telegram between Jan and Mar 2023
The Saudi Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal) found 6,004,218 extremist content on the social media platform Telegram between January 1 and March 30 this year.
Furthermore, the two platforms have assisted in the closure of 1,840 channels that disseminate and promote extremist ideology and are affiliated with three terrorist groups (ISIS [Daesh], Al-Qaeda and Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham), reports Saudi Gazette.
Read More: Never flagged as a danger, Nice attacker traveled unimpeded
The Etidal team identified and monitored the three terrorist organizations' activity on Telegram in Arabic, it said.
It discovered 2,773,902 pieces with extremist content on 477 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham channels, 1,807,215 such pieces on 1,040 Daesh channels, and 1,423,101 pieces on 323 Al-Qaeda channels.
The Etidal monitoring team observed a peak in broadcasting activity on Telegram on January 9 this year, with 451,911 pieces of content shared and referenced to, and a peak in account creation on March 27, with over 101 channels launched in a single day, the report also said.
Read More: Shamima Begum who joined ISIS as a teen loses UK citizenship appeal
The cooperation between Etidal and Telegram continues for the second year in a row, increasing the total number of items deleted from February 2022 until now to 21,026,169; these included extremist content and 8,664 terminated terrorist channels.
Vivo brings V27e
Global technology company vivo has launched V27e in Bangladesh with 64MP OIS Ultra-Sensing Camera, 66W flash charge, and Aura Light Portrait.
The latest addition to its V series, V27e, will be available from Sunday.
The Aura Light and Portrait mode helps the device's camera light up faces in low night conditions. It simultaneously can control luminosity and provide exceptional glowing portraits
V27e's 64 MP OIS ultra-sensing camera on the back offers a "long exposure and increases light intake by six times, producing more stable snapshots and boosting the quality and success rate," the company said Saturday.
"The 32 MP HD Front camera, 2MP Bokeh and 2MP micro-camera ensure clearer selfies with richer details for a poster-like image. Also, the handset is well equipped with Sony IMX766V sensor-based 50MP OIS rear camera, 50MP front camera, 8MP wide-angle camera and 2MP micro-camera. Mediatech Helio G99 processor adds more viability to the phone's mechanism for better-clicking facilities," it added.
The device's Hybrid Image Stabilisation can perform stabilisation computations and movements up to 10,000 times per second, giving the users smoother, and more stable footage.
The Vlog Movie Creator feature offers a new one-stop video creation experience, providing 24 templates with rich video effects to show users how to shoot objects, people, or landscapes, along with real-time guidance for camera movement.
V27e comprises 8GB + 8 GB extended RAM with 256GB storage. The incorporation of FunTouch OS 13 is incorporated to help people seamlessly switch between apps and store data.
The device's 120 Hz AMOLED display features self-developed ambient light sensors combined with luminescent materials.
V27e will be available in two colour variants, Lavender Purple and Glory Black, for Tk32,999.
How a little-known agency holds power over TikTok's future
Under pressure from the U.S. government, TikTok is now facing the music with the possibility of a nationwide ban if it defies a government order to sell to an American company — unless the popular social media app can convince a high-powered panel that its data security restructuring plan sufficiently guards against national security concerns.
At the heart of this social media business and national security drama is the increasingly tense relations between the U.S. and China.
The video-sharing platform with 150 million U.S. users is best known for quick snippets of viral dance routines and has been under scrutiny for years by federal authorities who say that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, could share sensitive user data with the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.
Having already banned the shipment of certain technologies to China, and recently passing new legislation banning the app on government devices, lawmakers want to pursue a nationwide ban on the app if the tech firm can’t be sold to an American buyer.
Enter: The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The little-known but potentially potent government agency known as CFIUS is tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns and holds power to force the company to change.
WHY IS CFIUS SCRUTINIZING TIKTOK?
For at least two years, the U.S. government has tried to force TikTok ownership to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, though CFIUS’ review of the social media app goes back at least to 2019.
Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin confirmed in 2020 that CFIUS was reviewing whether then-President Donald Trump could ban TikTok in the U.S. Its members agreed that TikTok cannot operate in the U.S. in its current form because it “risks sending back information on 100 million Americans,” Mnuchin said at the time.
As geopolitical tensions between China and the U.S. have soared in recent months, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified last week before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He was grilled about online safety and user privacy in a hostile hearing that did little to ease lawmakers’ concerns. Chew was repeatedly questioned about the Chinese Communist Party’s influence on ByteDance but deflected.
“TikTok is not available in mainland China, and today we’re headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, but I’m not saying that the founders of ByteDance are not Chinese, nor am I saying that we don’t make use of Chinese employees, just like many other companies around the world,” he added. “We do use their expertise on some engineering projects.”
WHAT IS CFIUS?
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen oversees CFIUS, a committee made up of members from the State, Justice, Energy and Commerce Departments among others, which investigates national security risks from foreign investments in American firms.
The committee screens business deals between U.S. firms and foreign investors and can block sales or force parties to change the terms of an agreement for the purpose of protecting national security. The committee’s powers were significantly expanded in 2018 through an act of Congress called the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, known as FIRRMA. In September, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that expands the factors that the committee should consider when reviewing deals – such as how the deal impacts the U.S. supply chain or risks to Americans’ sensitive personal data.
SELL, BAN OR ORACLE?
Defying CFIUS’ orders to sell ultimately could mean doing business with the company may violate the law. That would suck the life out of its business operations, such as banking, payroll, advertising, and app store services.
But the company said it’s already mitigating national security concerns with a $1.5 billion mitigation plan called Project Texas that would route all U.S. user data to servers owned and maintained by the U.S. software giant Oracle.
“When that process is complete, all protected U.S. data will be under the protection of U.S. law and under the control of the U.S.-led security team. Under this structure, there is no way for the Chinese government to access it or compel access to it,” Chew said.
While CFIUS can adopt such mitigation agreements, it’s not clear if the committee will accept TikTok’s proposed alternative, said Anupam Chander, a Georgetown University technology law professor. If CFIUS rejects TikTok’s preferred solution, Chander said the federal agency should have an obligation to explain how it finds that plan to be insufficient given that it amounts to an enormous restructuring of the company.
“TikTok proposes lots of well-paid, third-party auditors that would be doing this kind of routine monitoring,” Chander said. “This is an expensive proposition for TikTok but by no means would I treat this as window dressing.”
Though Chew last week also insisted that the company was not interested in a sale, TikTok has considered it before. TikTok had advanced negotiations with Microsoft after the company was put against the wall by the Trump administration in 2020, facing either an outright ban and CFIUS’ divestment order. Microsoft said TikTok ultimately rejected their offer, and though TikTok later said it would sell to Oracle and Walmart, it doesn’t appear that Project Texas amounts to a sale, Chander said.
Should TikTok agree to a sale in the future, not only would CFIUS have to approve that transaction, but the Chinese government – which has said it won’t support forced divestment – could also intervene.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Leaders in the U.S., European Union, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Taiwan have also banned TikTok on government-issued devices and at least two countries have banned TikTok outright.
Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership last year banned it on the grounds of protecting young people from “being misled,” while India imposed a nationwide ban on TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps in 2020 over privacy and security concerns. The ban came shortly after a clash between Indian and Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border killed 20 Indian soldiers and injured dozens.
Historically, CFIUS has focused on things like shipping and manufacturing when reviewing transactions for national security concerns, but it signaled deeper interest in popular social media when it ordered the dating app Grindr to divest in 2019, Chander said.
The function of CFIUS was also in the spotlight last year after billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, plunging the microblogging platform into chaos. Yellen waffled on whether or not CFIUS would or could review that sale, given Musk’s investments in China as well as significant Saudi interest.