US billionaire considers buying TikTok to protect internet from big tech companies

US real estate tycoon Frank McCourt is seeking to buy TikTok in a bid to save the internet from the giant platforms he firmly believes are corrupting society and putting children at risk.

McCourt is best known in the United States as the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, but in Europe he is the current owner of the legendary soccer club Olympique de Marseille, which counts French President Emmanuel Macron among its fans.

McCourt has long been a vocal critic of the power of big tech platforms, accusing them of harming children and helping to make the world go mad.

“We are being controlled by these big platforms, which is why wherever you go in a free society you see the world on fire,” McCourt told AFP at the Collision technology conference in Toronto.

As the latest example, he points to the political turmoil in France, where the far right is likely to win a landslide victory in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“We’re in a state of upheaval, we’re in a state of confusion, we’re in a state of polarization. But the algorithms are working. The algorithms are keeping us in that state. It’s time for a change.”

McCourt said he was initially motivated to act by threats posed on social media to his seven children.

“This internet is predatory. It’s doing so much damage to kids. We’re seeing an epidemic of anxiety, depression and kids committing suicide right now,” he said.

To address this issue, McCourt is promoting a “new internet” that he claims would take control of the web away from major platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and X.

“These platforms are packed with hundreds of thousands of individual attributes about each of us — not just where we shop, what we like to eat or where we are physically — but how we think, how we express our emotions, how we react and how we behave,” he said.

McCourt envisions a new internet, an open-source, decentralized protocol that gives users control over their data, regardless of which social media app they use.

He said buying TikTok would give his initiative, known as Project Liberty, new scale and reach to a large, mostly young, user base.

Project Liberty’s supporters include internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee and New York University professor Jonathan Haidt, whose latest book, “The Anxious Generation,” highlights the destructive impact of social media on young people.

McCourt is not the only one with an eye on the Chinese-owned platform, as former President Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has also made a takeover bid.

Those plans, which some say are unfeasible, come in the wake of a bill signed by U.S. President Joe Biden in April that requires TikTok to find a buyer outside of China within 270 days or face a ban in the country.

But it’s far from certain that TikTok will ultimately be put up for sale.

The company is fighting the law in U.S. courts, and the Chinese government has said it will not accept the sale of one of the country’s most successful tech brands.

“What the US government is concerned about is that data on 170 million Americans is being collected and sent to China,” McCourt said, adding that this “obviously” poses a national security threat.

But he added, “I hope this TikTok issue will open people’s eyes and make them realise that their data is being collected and sent somewhere” (on other platforms too).

“You may not be going to China, but you’re going to a place that’s controlled by somebody who has all the information about you. That’s not right. It’s undemocratic,” he said.