I think we all agree the power of TikTok is the algorithm. One way or the other it dishes up the right content without the need for following a lot of people or other ways of letting it know what you want to see. The question is what will change when TikTok is going to be split into a US version and a "rest of the world" version.

The US government decided to ban TikTok. An initiative of Trump during his first presidency, which was executed by Biden, and should have come into effect in early 2025. For a few weeks the TikTok app was not available in the app stores, but then Trump decided to delay the execution, and buy time to get a deal on making TikTok in the US becoming less dependent on China, as Bytedance, the mother company of TikTok is a Chinese company.

It seems US government is worried about all the data a Chinese company, and thereby the Chinese government can gather about the behaviour of US citizens. As there might be more efficient ways to gather information than using a social media app, it is basically what Meta has been doing for years with their Facebook and Instagram apps. Which seems less worrying to a lot of people. But when the buyers of the US TikTok will be the friends of Trump (like Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch and Marc Andreessen) it is creating a similar situation, however with the US government involved instead of the Chinese government.

But the question is, will a split off work? The details of the deal are not yet known, so there are many questions. Will US TikTok be able to use the original algorithm and will it be maintained? Or will it just get the brand and the subscribers? Will TikTok videos from the rest of the world be visible in the US? Or will it just be US videos? And how will it be moderated? Will people need to download a new TikTok app and register again? All these things can be a disruption and make TikTok US into becoming the next MySpace. In the meantime Meta is fully invested into making Reels the new TikTok. And professional content creators in the US might prefer the global audience of Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts to the uncertainty of a US only TikTok.

And while the deal is not done and the details are not known, this is a good time to do some predictions. Or you might call it speculations. My prediction is that the split of TikTok will be a failure. I think the Chinese government will approve the split-off. Probably in exchange for some trade deals that brings them more than losing a US audience for TikTok. TikTok US will not really get off the ground, and lose both subscribers and content creators. And will maybe become a far-right promotion machine, just like X. In the meantime TikTok will remain to be the most popular social media app in the rest of the world. And in the US Meta will benefit from the downfall.

Let's see what happens in the next few months, I am very curious to see how the TikTok story develops.