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The UK is the first country to approve the vaccine for widespread use — paving the way for some of the most “high risk” citizens, such as elderly care home residents and front-line healthcare workers, to get the jab before the end of the year.
The BBC reports that the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said the vaccine is safe to be rolled out from next week. Though it’s not yet clear exactly who will get the first doses.
The request for emergency authorization was submitted by BioNTech and Pfizer to the MHRA last month — as well as to regulators in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and the U.S., none of which has yet given the go ahead.
In a statement, Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, described the Emergency Use Authorization in the U.K. as “a historic moment in the fight against COVID-19”.
“This authorization is a goal we have been working toward since we first declared that science will win, and we applaud the MHRA for their ability to conduct a careful assessment and take timely action to help protect the people of the U.K.,” he said. “As we anticipate further authorizations and approvals, we are focused on moving with the same level of urgency to safely supply a high-quality vaccine around the world. With thousands of people becoming infected, every day matters in the collective race to end this devastating pandemic.”
The UK approval is based on trial data, including a worldwide Phase 3 clinical study carried out by BioNTech/Pfizer which demonstrated an efficacy rate for the vaccine of 95% and raised no serious safety concerns.
The vaccine was also shown to be effective both in participants who had not previously contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus and those who had — based on measuring efficacy seven days after the second dose.
Efficacy was also reported as consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics, with an observed efficacy in adults age 65 and over of more than 94%, the companies said.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson tweeted the news of the formal authorization this morning — writing that the vaccine will “begin to be made available across the UK from next week”. (A second tweet anticipated how vaccination in general will “ultimately” enable a return to economic life as usual.)
The UK has ordered 40M doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, or enough vaccine for 20M people (as it requires two doses), though it will take time for the country to receive all the doses ordered.
“The delivery of the 40 million doses will occur throughout 2020 and 2021, in stages, to ensure an equitable allocation of vaccines across the geographies with executed contracts,” the companies wrote in a press release.
“Now that the vaccine is authorized in the U.K., the companies will take immediate action to begin the delivery of vaccine doses. The first doses are expected to arrive in the U.K. in the coming days, with complete delivery fulfilment expected in 2021,” they added.
The UK’s National Health Service is gearing up for what NHS chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, described as “the largest-scale vaccination campaign in our country’s history”. Per the BBC, some 50 hospitals are on standby and vaccination centers in venues such as conference centres are also being set up.
In comments to journalists this morning, health secretary Matt Hancock said 800,000 doses of the virus will be available next week, with the bulk of the rollout coming in the new year. “We’ll deploy it at the speed that it’s manufactured,” he added.
Hancock said priority for the first batch of jabs will be given to “the most elderly” and people in care homes, including their carers. “Then essentially it comes down the age range. NHS staff are also high on that priority list, and also the clinically extremely vulnerable… those that are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus,” he added.
The vaccine requires two doses taken 21 days apart. Speaking at a press conference today, officials from the MHRA and the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation confirmed full immunity comes seven days after the second dose, although they noted partial immunity can arise a number of days after taking the first dose.
In the press conference the MHRA’s CEO, Dr June Raine, said the public can have “absolute confidence” in the standards of checks carried out on the data which led to the vaccine’s approval — describing them as “equivalent” to those ongoing at international counterparts such as the US’ Food and Drug Administration, which has not yet given the go ahead for use.
The UK’s speed was down to months of preparation, starting in the summer — such as mounting teams and building capacity so staff could work in parallel, she said.
Asked whether brexit had anything to do with the regulator authorizing the vaccine quicker than EU counterparts — something Hancock has claimed — Raine rather said it had benefitted from being able to use provisions under European law that exist until January 1 (when the brexit transition period ends).
The MHRA’s speedy approval was dependent on access to rolling data and expertise, she said — raising questions about whether the UK’s impending exit from the EU will slow down approval of additional COVID-19 vaccines.
“Our progress has been totally dependent on the availability of data in our rolling review and the rigorous assessment and independent advice we have received so I hope that clarifies the point about the European relationship,” Raine added.
JVCI officials said operational constraints associated with the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine’s requirement for very cold storage (-70 degrees) could lead to some “flexibility” in implementing the first phase of the vaccination program — which otherwise intends it to be offered to priority groups in the following order:
Image credit: MHRA/JVCI press conference slide
So it could mean, for example, that front line healthcare staff get bumped up if it’s easier to supply the vaccine to them as a result of cold storage facilities where they work. However the officials also noted that the vaccine is stable for a short period between 2-8 degrees — which they suggested will help with the challenge of distribution in care homes.
The UK is obtaining its supply of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine from within the EU — from a manufacturing facility in Belgium. It’s not clear whether the impending end of the Brexit transition period will pose any logistical challenges to a smooth future supply of the vaccine — by putting a brake on Hancock’s plan to roll it out at the pace it’s manufactured. This is because negotiations are ongoing between the UK and the EU over a possible post-brexit trade deal, with concerns of major border delays resulting from customs checks in the event of no deal.
Another remaining (non-UK specific) question is how long the vaccine’s protection lasts. Given how quickly the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine has been developed — in a matter of months — there’s no long term data available to answer that yet.
The same is true of COVID-19 vaccine candidates being developed by other companies.
“The Emergency Use Authorization in the U.K. will mark the first time citizens outside of the trials will have the opportunity to be immunized against COVID-19,” said Ugur Sahin, M.D., CEO and co-founder of BioNTech in a supporting statement. “We believe that the roll-out of the vaccination program in the U.K. will reduce the number of people in the high-risk population being hospitalized.
“Our aim is to bring a safe and effective vaccine upon approval to the people who need it. The data submitted to regulatory agencies around the world are the result of a scientifically rigorous and highly ethical research and development program.”
This report was updated with additional detail from press conferences and ministers comments this morning
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TechCrunch
Loóna is a fitting app to win the award this year. The sleep aid promises a mood-altering experience that helps its users deal with the negative emotions that accumulate during the day and are then processed during sleep. As anxiety and stress grow, people’s sleep patterns and REM sleep be disrupted, Loóna explains. To combat this, its app offers nightly “sleepscapes,” that combined activity-based relaxation, storytelling and sounds to help people shut out their stress and relax.
Unlike other sleep or meditation apps where users close their eyes and drift off, Loóna is intended to help people wind down while still on their phones. Users tap to color images while the sleep story plays. The company also this year introduced music playlists, called soundscapes.
Image Credits: Loóna
In October, the company reported its app — which is also available on iOS — was seeing daily average time spent of 34 minutes from its subscribers. And its average conversion rate from trial to paid subscriber was 52.5%. Today, Loóna says it has reached 500,000 users and people have spent over 35 million total mindful minutes with its product to date. With version 2.0, Loóna plans to reposition its app from being solely focused on bedtime relaxation to become a broader mood management app that also covers the sleep to wake up cycle, among other things. It also plans to add personalized content recommendations.
In addition to Loóna, Google Play editors selected the free-to-play action role-playing game Genshin Impact as the year’s best game for giving players a “wondrous world to explore” while unraveling mysteries. The game, miHoYo’s first-ever open-world game, features battles with elemental magic, character switching, and gacha game monetization for obtaining new characters, weapons, and other additions.
Google Play users, however, selected SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off as the year’s best game.
Another app that benefitted from coronavirus lockdowns was Disney+, which won this year’s User’s Choice award for Best App. The streaming service helped families stuck at home to keep their kids entertained. Plus, with new shows like the “The Mandalorian,” the service has been a hit for adults in the family, too.
In addition to the top winners, Google gave a shout-out to a few other notable titles in its announcement, including Chris Hemsworth’s training app Centr, behavioral modification app Intellect, as well as games like The Gardens Between, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, and Sky: Children of the Light.
The Play Store also awarded various gaming subgenres with awards of their own, like best competitive games, best indies, best pick up and play, and best game changers. These winners include Brawlhalla, Bullet Echo, GWENT: The Witcher Card Game, Legends of Runeterra, The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross, Cookies Must Die, GRIS, inbento, Maze Machina, Sky: Children of Light, Disney Frozen Adventures, DreamWorks Trolls Pop, EverMerge, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off, Fancade, Genshin Impact, Minimal Dungeon RPG, Ord., and The Gardens Between.
Other top apps won awards in categories like best everyday essentials, best for personal growth, best hidden gems, best for fun, and best apps for good. These app winners include Calmaria, Grid Diary, The Pattern, Whisk, Zoom, Centr, Intellect, Jumprope: How-to Videos, Paired: Couples App, Speekoo, Cappuccino, Explorest, Loóna, Paperless Post, Tayasui Sketches, Bazaart, Disney+, Dolby On, Reface, Vita, GreenChoice, Medito, and ShareTheMeal.
Movies that won “Best of” for 2020 included Bill & Ted Face the Music, Just Mercy, Miss Juneteenth, Onward, and Parasite; while book winners included A Promised Land by Barack Obama, The City We Became by N.K. Jesmin, Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi, Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh, and You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria,
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TechCrunch
Firstminute’s team of 18 is based in London, Stockholm and Berlin and now has plans to open an office in LA next year.
Of note is the fact that its LPs now number 70 founders of billion-dollar businesses as investors, and that Firstminute is being so open. VCs typically do not reveal much information about LPs. Hoberman has clearly also leveraged his position as founder of the Founders Forum group which runs events and activities for European tech founders.
The fact that so many founders – largely drawn from the ranks of European startups – have invested is unusual, certainly for European VC funds. It includes 16 founders of $10bn+ “decacorn” technology businesses, including Palantir, Wayfair, Ocado, MongoDB, Zalando, Supercell and Check Point, as well as founders from Huda Beauty, Graphcore and Rappi. Included are board members and CEOs from large technology companies.
RIT Capital Partners is the fund’s anchor investor. This is their first such position in a European venture capital firm. They previously backed leading US funds including Sequoia, Benchmark, Thrive and Iconiq. Additional institutional investors include the Chinese technology giant Tencent, FMCG conglomerate Henkel, London-based venture fund Atomico and four Californian multi-stage firms.
The existing Fund I portfolio consists of 56 companies that have collectively raised approximately $0.5bn in funding.
Firstminute says half of its current portfolio companies have UK headquarters, with the remaining half split between continental Europe and North America. Two-thirds of the businesses are B2B and one third are B2C.
Hoberman said in a statement: “European technology is reaching escape velocity, and it’s fantastic to enable so many global serial entrepreneurs to give their experience to the next generation: we have over 70 unicorn founders joining us on this journey so far, and more to come as we approach final close. Seed venture investing is attracting ever higher quality backers which will help more founders succeed.”
Crawley, firstminute Co-founder & General Partner, said: “Our healthcare systems, workplaces and educational establishments face fresh complexities. The service economy is having to re-imagine itself. The gap between financial markets and the real economy is growing wider (with the young most at risk). Start-ups are not a panacea, but emerging technology companies have a key role to play in today’s recovery strategy, both in their mindset and the products they will create.”
I asked Hoberman to what extent was the internationalization of the fund‘s geographical footprint related to Brexit?
“Some investors have asked us about the risks of Brexit to a UK-based fund and it’s been great to highlight the international nature of our approach,” he said. “The potential threats of a bad Brexit deal ensured we moved faster to cover more geographies.”
I also asked him what advantages or disadvantages does having so many founders as LPs confer on the fund?
“Operators understand the rollercoaster of the founder journey well. They know the path to success is rarely linear. They have lived the scaling journey with all its challenges. They can impart this wisdom to the next generation.
“These founders know about blitzscaling, board management, prioritization, fundraising, internationalization and above all the role of talent and teams. This knowledge can make the difference between failure and extraordinary success.
“Furthermore successful founders often have world-class network, useful for hiring, internationalization and business development deals,” he said.
Firstminute also announced some team changes. Arek Wylegalski, formerly of Index Ventures, has joined as a partner for Fund II. Arek was a Venture Partner with the firm during Fund I. Lina Wenner, formerly of BCG, has been promoted to Associate Partner, and Camilla Mazzolini, Clara Lindh Bergendorff and Sam Endacott have been promoted to Principals. Min Nolan, Head of Platform & Operations, and Anais Benazet, Head of Community, lead the portfolio support function, whilst Henry Lane-Fox, Steve Crossan and Tommy Stadlen continue to invest as venture partners.
The backers of firstminute capital funds include the founders and/or executives from the companies listed below:
firstminute LPs – Founders of $10bn+ companies, include:
Joe Lonsdale (Palantir Technologies), Robert Gentz (Zalando), Niraj Shah (Wayfair), Tim Steiner (Ocado), Marius Nacht (Check Point), Kevin Ryan (MongoDB), Ilkka Paananen (Supercell), Adyen, Autonomy, Airtel.
firstminute LPs – Founders of $1bn+ companies, include:
Sebastian Mejia (Rappi), Ross Mason (MuleSoft), Pete Flint (Trulia), Martin Migoya (Globant), Vikrant Bhargava (PartyGaming), Martin Varsavsky (Jazztel, Fon, Eolia), Fabrice Grinda (OLX), Steve Fredette (Toast), Rafi Gidron (Chromatis), Simon Nixon (Moneysupermarket), Lars Hinrichs (XING), Johan Brand (Kahoot), Huda Kattan (Huda Beauty), Tom Chapman & Ruth Chapman (Matchesfashion), Nigel Toon (Graphcore), Carl Pei (OnePlus), Hanzade Dogan (Hepsiburada), Barry Smith (Skyscanner), Sir Charles Dunstone (Carphone Warehouse), Hamish Shephard (HelloFresh), Alexander Rittweger (Payback), Marketshare, King.com, BlaBlaCar, Qunar, Net-a-Porter, Fox Kids Europe, Webhelp, Betfair, Datamonitor, Tradex Technologies, Zoopla.
firstminute LPs – Current or Former CEOs and Chairs, include:
Eric Schmidt (former Chairman and CEO, Google), Michael Lynton (Chairman, Snap and Warner Music Group, former CEO and Chairman, Sony), Sir Paul Ruddock (Co-founder & former CEO of Lansdowne Partners, Chairman Oxford University Endowment), Lord Mervyn Davies (Chairman of Corsair Capital, former Minister and Standard Chartered CEO & Chairman), Linda Fayne Levinson (former Chairwoman of Hertz), Jeremy Coller (Founder, Chairman and CIO Coller Capital), David Giampaolo (Chairman, Gousto), Ian Gallienne (CEO, Sienna Capital), Alexander de Carvalho (Co-founder & CIO of Public.io, Heineken NED), Babatunde Soyoye (Co-founder and Managing Partner, Helios Investment Partners), Nextdoor, PicsArt, Booking.com, Nordeus, Kinnevik AB, JCDecaux Holdings.
firstminute LPs – Institutional Investors, include:
RIT Capital Partners, Tencent, Atomico, Henkel, Felicis Ventures, The Raine Group, LionTree Partners, Lombard Odier.
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TechCrunch
It’s been a little over a year since Ryan Reynolds bought a majority stake in Mint Mobile, a deal that has already had a dramatic impact on the the MVNO (mobile virtual network operator).
The four-year-old company has seen a tremendous amount of growth, boosting revenue nearly 50,000% in the past three years. However, the D2C wireless carrier has seen its highest traffic days on the backs of Reynolds’ marketing initiatives and announcements.
There is a long history of celebrities getting involved with brands, either as brand ambassadors or ‘Creative Directors’ without much value other than the initial press wave.
Lenovo famously hired Ashton Kutcher as a product engineer to help develop the Yoga 2 tablet, on which I assume you are all reading this post. Alicia Keys was brought on as BlackBerry’s Global Creative Director, which felt even more convoluted a partnership than Lady Gaga’s stint as Polaroid’s Creative Director. That’s not to say that these publicity stunts necessarily hurt the brands or the products (most of the time), but they probably didn’t help much, and likely cost a fortune.
And then there are the actual financial investments, in areas where celebrities fundamentally understand the industry, that still didn’t get to ‘alpha.’
Even Jay-Z has struggled to make a music streaming service successful. Justin Bieber never really got a selfie app off the ground. Heck, not even Justin Timberlake could breathe life back into MySpace. Reynolds seemingly has an even heavier lift here. It’s hard to imagine a string of words in the English language less sexy than, “mobile virtual network operator.”
Reynolds tells TechCrunch that he viewed celebrity investments as a kind of “handicapping,” prior to the Mint acquisition.
“I’ve just sort of seen how most celebrities are doing very, very well,” he explains. “We’re generally hocking or getting behind or investing in luxury and aspirational items and projects. Then George and I had a conversation about a year-and-a-half ago, maybe longer, about what if we swerved the other way? What if he kind of got into something that was hyper practical and just forget about the sexy aspirational stuff.”
Mint isn’t Reynolds’ first entrepreneurial venture. He bought a majority stake in Portland-based Aviation Gin in 2018, which recently sold for $610 million. He also cofounded marketing agency Maximum Effort alongside George Dewey, which has made its own impact over the past several years.
Maximum Effort was founded to help promote the actor’s first Deadpool film. Reynolds and Dewey had come up with several low-budget spots to get people excited about an R-rated comic book movie. The bid appears to have worked. The film raked in $783.1 million at the box office — a record for an R-rated film that held until the 2019 release of Joker.
Maximum Effort (and Reynolds) was also behind the viral Aviation Gin spot, which poked fun at the manipulative Peloton ad that aired last year around the holidays. The same actress who portrayed a woman seemingly tortured by her holiday gift of a Peloton sits at a bar with her friends, shell-shocked, sipping a Martini.
The original ad on YouTube, not counting recirculation by the media, has more than 7 million hits. Reynolds calls it ‘fast-vertising’.
“We get to react,” he told TechCrunch. “We get to acknowledge and play with the cultural landscape in real time and react to it in real time. There isn’t any red tape to come through, because it’s just a matter of signing off on the approval. So in a way, it’s unfair, in that sense, because most big corporations, they take weeks and weeks or months to get something approved. Our budgets are down and dirty, fast and cheap.”
He explained that this type of real-time marketing is only possible because he’s the owner of Maximum Effort (and in some cases of the client businesses, as well), but because there is no red tape to cut through when a great idea presents itself.
Reynolds has brought this marketing acumen to Mint Mobile in a big way. Last year during the Super Bowl, Reynolds took out a full page ad in The New York Times, explaining that the decision to spend $125,000 on a print ad instead of $5 million+ on a Super Bowl commercial would enable the prepaid carrier to pass the savings on to consumers.
In October, Reynolds spun Mint’s 5G launch into another light-hearted spot. He brought on the head of mobile technology to explain what 5G actually is, and after hearing the technical explanation, happily said “We may never know, so we’ll just give it away for free.”
Mint also released a holiday ad just a couple of weeks ago warning of wireless promo season, wherein large wireless carriers may try to lure customers into expensive contracts using new devices. Standing over a bear trap, Reynolds dryly states: “At Mint Mobile, we don’t hate you.”
Reynolds enjoys nearly 17 million Twitter followers and more than 36 million Instagram followers. He uses both platforms to promote his various brands without alienating his followers. Moreover, he doesn’t exclusively promote his brands on social media, but weaves in his own funny personal commentary or gives followers a peek into his marriage with Blake Lively, which we can all agree is #relationshipgoals.
Mint Mobile partners exclusively with T-Mobile to provide service, and unlike some other MVNOs, it uses a direct-to-consumer model, foregoing any physical footprint. Plans start at $15/month and top out at $30/month. CMO Aron North says that Reynolds’ ownership and involvement with Mint Mobile is “absolutely critical.”
“Ryan is an A plus plus celebrity, and he’s very funny and entertaining and engaging,” said North. “His reach has given us a much bigger platform to speak on. I would say he is absolutely critical in our success and our growth.”
We asked Reynolds if he has any specific plans for further tech investment, or if there are any trends he’s keeping an eye on. He explained that his motivations are not purely capitalistic.
“I’m really focused on community and bringing people together,” said Reynolds. “We think it’s super cool to bring people together, particularly in a world that is very divisive. Even in our marketing, we try to find ways to have huge cultural moments without polarizing people without dividing people without saying one thing is wrong.”
In one of the company’s more notable recent spots, Reynolds enlisted the help of iconic comedian, Rick Moranis. It was an impressive coup, given the actor’s seeming retreat from the public eye, turning down two separate Ghostbusters film reboots.
“It’s funny what happens when you just ask,” says Reynolds. “I explained that people genuinely miss him and his performances and his energy. And he, for whatever reason, said yes, and the next thing I know, six days later, we were out of there in 15, 20 minutes and we shot our spot.”
Of course, it didn’t escape the internet’s notice that two well-known Canadian actors were standing in a field, selling a U.S.-only wireless service.
“I would love to see [Mint] in Canada,” Reynolds says. “There’s a Big Three here that’s challenging to crack. I don’t pretend to know the telecom business well enough to say why, how or what the path forward would be there. I see basically a tsunami of feedback from Canada, asking ‘why can’t we have this here?’ I think it’s sexy. It’s pragmatic and sexy. That’s why I got involved with it.”
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TechCrunch
These years were a period of fast growth for ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company behind TikTok. Originally launched in China as Douyin, the video-sharing app quickly was wildly successful in its domestic market before setting its sights on the rest of the world.
Zhang Yiming, a 29-year-old serial engineer, establishes ByteDance in Beijing.
Chinese product designer Alex Zhu launches Musical.ly.
ByteDance launches Douyin, which is regarded by many as a Musical.ly clone. It launches Douyin’s overseas version TikTok later that year.
TikTok merges with Musical.ly and and launches in the U.S., where it quickly becomes popular, the first social media app from a Chinese tech company to achieve that level of success there. But at the same time, its ownership leads to questions about national security and censorship, against the backdrop of the U.S.-China tariff wars and increased scrutiny of Chinese tech companies (including Huawei and ZTE) under the Trump administration.
November
ByteDance buys Musical.ly for $800 million to $1 billion. (link)
August
TikTok merges with Musical.ly and becomes available in the U.S. (link)
October
TikTok surpasses Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in downloads. (link)
November
Facebook launches TikTok rival Lasso. (link)
February
TikTok reaches one billion installs on the App Store and Google Play. (link)
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission fines TikTok $5.7 million over violation of children’s privacy law. (link)
May
TikTok tops the App Store for the fifth quarter in a row. (link)
September
TikTok is found censoring topics considered sensitive by the Beijing government. (link)
October
TikTok bans political ads (link) but does not appear to take action on hashtags related to American politics. (link)
TikTok taps corporate law firm K&L Gates for advice on content moderation in the U.S. (link)
U.S. lawmakers ask intelligence chief Joseph Maguire to investigate if TikTok poses a threat to national security. (link)
TikTok says it has never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and would not do so if asked. (link)
November
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reportedly opens a national security probe into TikTok. (link)
Instagram launches TikTok rival Reels. (link)
TikTok apologizes for removing a viral video about abuses against Uighurs. (link)
December
The U.S. Navy reportedly bans TikTok. (link)
The app is now a mainstay of online culture in America, especially among Generation Z, and its user base has grown even wider as people seek diversions during the COVID-19 pandemic. But TikTok faces an escalating series of government actions, creating confusion about its future in America.
A man wearing a shirt promoting TikTok is seen at an Apple store in Beijing on Friday, July 17, 2020. Image Credits: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
January
Revived Dubsmash grows into TikTok’s imminent rival. (link)
March
TikTok lets outside experts examine its moderation practices at its “transparency center.” (link)
Senators introduce a bill to restrict the use of TikTok on government devices. (link)
TikTok brings in outside experts to craft content policies. (link)
April
TikTok introduces parental controls. (link)
TikTok tops two billion downloads. (link)
June
TikTok discloses how its content recommendation system works. (link)
YouTube launches TikTok rival. (link)
July
Facebook shuts down TikTok rival Lasso. (link)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the U.S. is looking to ban TikTok. (link)
TikTok announced a $200 million fund for U.S. creators. (link)
Trump told reporters he will use executive power to ban TikTok. (link)
After weeks of speculation, Trump signs an executive order in August against ByteDance. ByteDance begins seeking American buyers for TikTok, but the company also fights the executive order in court. A group of TikTok creators also file a lawsuit challenging the order. The last few months of 2020 become a relentless, and often confusing, flurry of events and new developments for TikTok observers, with no end in sight.
August
Reports say ByteDance agrees to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations and Microsoft will take over. (link)
Trump signals opposition to the ByteDance-Microsoft deal. (link)
Microsoft announces discussions about the TikTok purchase will complete no later than September 15. (link)
Trump shifts tone and says he expects a cut from the TikTok sale. (link)
TikTok broadens fact-checking partnerships ahead of the U.S. election. (link)
August 7: In the most significant escalation of tensions between the U.S. government and TikTok, Trump signs an executive order banning “transactions” with ByteDance in 45 days, or on September 20. (link). TikTok says the order was “issued without any due process” and would risk “undermining global businesses’ trust in the United States’ commitment to the rule of law.” (link)
August 9: TikTok reportedly plans to challenge the Trump administration ban. (link)
Oracle is also reportedly bidding for the TikTok sale. (link)
August 24: TikTok and ByteDance file their first lawsuit in federal court against the executive order, naming President Trump, Secretary of State Wilbur Ross and the U.S. Department of Commerce as defendants. The suit seeks to prevent the government from banning TikTok. Filed in U.S. District Court Central District of California (case number 2:20-cv-7672), it claims Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional. (link)
TikTok reaches 100 million users in the U.S. (link)
August 27: TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigns after 100 days. (link)
Kevin Mayer. Image Credits: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
Walmart says it has expressed interest in teaming up with Microsoft to bid for TikTok. (link)
August 28: China’s revised export laws could block TikTok’s divestment. (link)
September
China says it would rather see TikTok shuttered than sold to an American firm. (link)
September 13: Oracle confirms it is part of a proposal submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department in which Oracle will serve as the “trusted technology provider.” (link)
September 18: The Commerce Department publishes regulations against TikTok that will take effect in two phases. The app will no longer be distributed in U.S. app stores as of September 20, but it gets an extension on how it operates until November 12. After that, however, it will no longer be able to use internet hosting services in the U.S., rendering it inaccessible. (link)
On the same day as the Commerce Department’s announcement, two separate lawsuits are filed against Trump’s executive order against TikTok. One is filed by ByteDance, while the other is by three TikTok creators.
The one filed by TikTok and ByteDance is in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (case number 20-cv-02658), naming President Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the Commerce Department as defendants. It is very similar to the suit ByteDance previously filed in California. TikTok and ByteDance’s lawyers argue that Trump’s executive order violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the right to free speech, and due process and takings clauses.
The other lawsuit, filed by TikTok creators Douglas Marland, Cosette Rinab and Alec Chambers, also names the president, Ross and the Department of Commerce as defendants. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (case number 2:20-cv-04597), argues that Trump’s executive order “violates the first and fifth amendments of the U.S. Constitution and exceeds the President’s statutory authority.”
September 19: One day before the September 20 deadline that would have forced Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores, the Commerce Department extends it by a week to September 27. This is reportedly to give ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart time to finalize their deal.
On the same day, Marland, Rinab and Chambers, the three TikTok creators, file their first motion for a preliminary injunction against Trump’s executive order. They argue that the executive order violates freedom of speech and deprives them of “protected liberty and property interests without due process,” because if a ban goes into effect, it would prevent them from making income from TikTok-related activities, like promotional and branding work.
September 20: After filing the D.C. District Court lawsuit against Trump’s executive order, TikTok and ByteDance formally withdraw their similar pending suit in the U.S. District Court of Central District of California.
September 21: ByteDance and Oracle confirm the deal but send conflicting statements over TikTok’s new ownership. TikTok is valued at an estimated $60 billion. (link)
September 22: China’s state newspaper says China won’t approve the TikTok sale, labeling it “extortion.” (link)
September 23: TikTok and ByteDance ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to grant a preliminary injunction against the executive order, arguing that the September 27 ban removing TikTok from app stores will “inflict direct, immediate, and irreparable harm on Plaintiffs during the pendency of this case.” (link)
September 26: U.S. District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone denies Marland, Rinab and Chambers’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the executive order, writing that the three did not demonstrate “they will suffer immediate, irreparable harm if users and prospective users cannot download or update” TikTok after September 27, since they will still be able to use the app.
September 27: Just hours before the TikTok ban was set to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols grants ByteDance’s request for a preliminary injunction while the court considers whether the app poses a risk to national security. (link)
September 29: TikTok launches a U.S. election guide in the app. (link)
October
WASHINGTON, D.C.—AUGUST 07: In this photo illustration, comedian Sarah Cooper’s page is displayed on the TikTok app. Image Credits: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Snapchat launches a TikTok rival. (link)
TikTok says it’s enforcing actions against hate speech. (link)
TikTok partners with Shopify on social commerce. (link)
October 13: After failing to win their first request for a preliminary injunction, TikTok creators Marland, Rinab and Chambers file a second one. This time, their request focuses on the Commerce Department’s November 12 deadline, which they say will make it impossible for users to access or post content on TikTok if it goes into effect.
October 30: U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone grants TikTok creators Marland, Chambers and Rinab’s second request for a preliminary injunction against the TikTok ban. (link)
November
November 7: After five days of waiting for vote counts, Joe Biden is declared the president-elect by CNN, followed by the AP, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox News. With Biden set to be sworn in as president on January 20, the future of Trump’s executive order against TikTok becomes even more uncertain.
November 10: ByteDance asks the federal appeals court to vacate the U.S. government’s divestiture order that would force it to sell the app’s American operations by November 12. Filed as part of the lawsuit in D.C. District Court, ByteDance said it asked the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States for an extension, but hadn’t been granted one yet. (link)
November 12: This is the day that the Commerce Department’s ban on transactions with ByteDance, including providing internet hosting services to TikTok (which would stop the app from being able to operate in the U.S.), was set to go into effect. But instead the case becomes more convoluted as the U.S. government sends mixed messages about TikTok’s future.
The Commerce Department says it will abide by the preliminary injunction granted on October 30 by Judge Beetlestone, pending further legal developments. But, around the same time, the Justice Department files an appeal against Beetlestone’s ruling. Then Judge Nichols sets new deadlines (December 14 and 28) in the D.C. District Court lawsuit (the one filed by ByteDance against the Trump administration) for both sides to file motions and other new documents in the case. (link)
November 25: The Trump administration grants ByteDance a seven-day extension of the divestiture order. The deadline for ByteDance to finalize a sale of TikTok is now December 4.
This timeline will be updated as developments occur.
]]>
TechCrunch
These years were a period of fast growth for ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company behind TikTok. Originally launched in China as Douyin, the video-sharing app quickly was wildly successful in its domestic market before setting its sights on the rest of the world.
Zhang Yiming, a 29-year-old serial engineer, establishes ByteDance in Beijing.
Chinese product designer Alex Zhu launches Musical.ly.
ByteDance launches Douyin, which is regarded by many as a Musical.ly clone. It launches Douyin’s overseas version TikTok later that year.
TikTok merges with Musical.ly and and launches in the U.S., where it quickly becomes popular, the first social media app from a Chinese tech company to achieve that level of success there. But at the same time, its ownership leads to questions about national security and censorship, against the backdrop of the U.S.-China tariff wars and increased scrutiny of Chinese tech companies (including Huawei and ZTE) under the Trump administration.
November
ByteDance buys Musical.ly for $800 million to $1 billion. (link)
August
TikTok merges with Musical.ly and becomes available in the U.S. (link)
October
TikTok surpassed Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in downloads. (link)
November
Facebook launches TikTok rival Lasso. (link)
February
TikTok reaches one billion installs on the App Store and Google Play. (link)
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission fines TikTok $5.7 million over violation of children privacy law. (link)
May
TikTok tops the App Store for the fifth quarter in a row. (link)
September
TikTok is found censoring topics considered sensitive by the Beijing government. (link)
October
TikTok bans political ads (link) but does not appear to take action on hashtags related to American politics. (link)
TikTok taps corporate law firm K&L Gates for advice on content moderation in the U.S. (link)
U.S. lawmakers ask intelligence chief Joseph Maguire to investigate if TikTok poses a threat to national security. (link)
TikTok says it has never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and would not do so if asked. (link)
November
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reportedly opens a national security probe into TikTok. (link)
Instagram launches TikTok rival Reels. (link)
TikTok apologizes for removing a viral video about abuses against Uighurs. (link)
December
The U.S. Navy reportedly bans TikTok. (link)
The app is now a mainstay of online culture in America, especially among Generation Z, and its user base has grown even wider as people seek diversions during the COVID-19 pandemic. But TikTok faces an escalating series of government actions, creating confusion about its future in America.
A man wearing a shirt promoting TikTok is seen at an Apple store in Beijing on Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
January
Revived Dubsmash grows into TikTok’s imminent rival. (link)
March
TikTok lets outside experts examine its moderation practices at its “transparency center.” (link)
Senators introduce a bill to restrict the use of TikTok on government devices. (link)
TikTok brings in outside experts to craft content policies. (link)
April
TikTok introduces parental controls. (link)
TikTok tops two billion downloads. (link)
June
TikTok discloses how its content recommendation system works. (link)
YouTube launches TikTok rival. (link)
July
Facebook shuts down TikTok rival Lasso. (link)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the U.S. is looking to ban TikTok. (link)
TikTok announced a $200 million fund for U.S. creators. (link)
Trump told reporters he will use executive power to ban TikTok. (link)
After weeks of speculation, Trump signs an executive order in August against ByteDance. ByteDance begins seeking American buyers for TikTok, but the company also fights the executive order in court. A group of TikTok creators also file a lawsuit challenging the order. The last few months of 2020 become a relentless, and often confusing, flurry of events and new developments for TikTok observers, with no end in sight.
August
Reports say ByteDance agrees to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations and Microsoft will take over. (link)
Trump signals opposition to the ByteDance-Microsoft deal. (link)
Microsoft announces discussions about the TikTok purchase will complete no later than September 15. (link)
Trump shifts tone and says he expects a cut from the TikTok sale. (link)
TikTok broadens fact-checking partnerships ahead of the U.S. election. (link)
August 7: In the most significant escalation of tensions between the U.S. government and TikTok, Trump signs an executive order banning “transactions” with ByteDance in 45 days, or on September 20. (link). TikTok says the order was “issued without any due process” and would risk “undermining global businesses’ trust in the United States’ commitment to the rule of law.” (link)
August 9: TikTok reportedly plans to challenge the Trump administration ban. (link)
Oracle is also reportedly bidding for the TikTok sale. (link)
August 24: TikTok and ByteDance file their first lawsuit in federal court against the executive order, naming President Trump, Secretary of State Wilbur Ross and the U.S. Department of Commerce as defendants. The suit seeks to prevent the government from banning TikTok. Filed in U.S. District Court Central District of California (case number 2:20-cv-7672), it claims Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional. (link)
TikTok reaches 100 million users in the U.S. (link)
August 27: TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigns after 100 days. (link)
Kevin Mayer (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
Walmart says it has expressed interest in teaming up with Microsoft to bid for TikTok. (link)
August 28: China’s revised export laws could block TikTok’s divestment. (link)
September
China says it would rather see TikTok shuttered than sold to an American firm. (link)
September 13: Oracle confirms it is part of a proposal submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department in which Oracle will serve as the “trusted technology provider.” (link)
September 18: The Commerce Department publishes regulations against TikTok that will take effect in two phases. The app will no longer be distributed in U.S. app stores as of September 20, but it gets an extension on how it operates until November 12. After that, however, it will no longer be able to use internet hosting services in the U.S., rendering it inaccessible. (link)
On the same day as the Commerce Department’s announcement, two separate lawsuits are filed against Trump’s executive order against TikTok. One is filed by ByteDance, while the other is by three TikTok creators.
The one filed by TikTok and ByteDance is in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (case number 20-cv-02658), naming President Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the Commerce Department as defendants. It is very similar to the suit ByteDance previously filed in California. TikTok and ByteDance’s lawyers argue that Trump’s executive order violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the right to free speech, and due process and takings clauses.
The other lawsuit, filed by TikTok creators Douglas Marland, Cosette Rinab and Alec Chambers, also names the president, Ross and the Department of Commerce as defendants. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (case number 2:20-cv-04597), argues that Trump’s executive order “violates the first and fifth amendments of the U.S. Constitution and exceeds the President’s statutory authority.”
September 19: One day before the September 20 deadline that would have forced Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores, the Commerce Department extends it by a week to September 27. This is reportedly to give ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart time to finalize their deal.
On the same day, Marland, Rinab and Chambers, the three TikTok creators, file their first motion for a preliminary injunction against Trump’s executive order. They argue that the executive order violates freedom of speech and deprives them of “protected liberty and property interests without due process,” because if a ban goes into effect, it would prevent them from making income from TikTok-related activities, like promotional and branding work.
September 20: After filing the D.C. District Court lawsuit against Trump’s executive order, TikTok and ByteDance formally withdraw their similar pending suit in the U.S. District Court of Central District of California.
September 21: ByteDance and Oracle confirm the deal but send conflicting statements over TikTok’s new ownership. TikTok is valued at an estimated $60 billion. (link)
September 22: China’s state newspaper says China won’t approve the TikTok sale, labeling it “extortion.” (link)
September 23: TikTok and ByteDance ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to grant a preliminary injunction against the executive order, arguing that the September 27 ban removing TikTok from app stores will “inflict direct, immediate, and irreparable harm on Plaintiffs during the pendency of this case.” (link)
September 26: U.S. District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone denies Marland, Rinab and Chambers’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the executive order, writing that the three did not demonstrate “they will suffer immediate, irreparable harm if users and prospective users cannot download or update” TikTok after September 27, since they will still be able to use the app.
September 27: Just hours before the TikTok ban was set to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols grants ByteDance’s request for a preliminary injunction while the court considers whether the app poses a risk to national security. (link)
September 29: TikTok launches a U.S. election guide in the app. (link)
October
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 07: In this photo illustration, comedian Sarah Cooper’s page is displayed on the TikTok app. (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Snapchat launches a TikTok rival. (link)
TikTok says it’s enforcing actions against hate speech. (link)
TikTok partners with Shopify on social commerce (link)
October 13: After failing to win their first request for a preliminary injunction, TikTok creators Marland, Rinab and Chambers file a second one. This time, their request focuses on the Commerce Department’s November 12 deadline, which they say will make it impossible for users to access or post content on TikTok if it goes into effect.
October 30: U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone grants TikTok creators Marland, Chambers and Rinab’s second request for a preliminary injunction against the TikTok ban. (link)
November
November 7: After five days of waiting for vote counts, Joe Biden is declared the president-elect by CNN, followed by the AP, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox News. With Biden set to be sworn in as president on January 20, the future of Trump’s executive order against TikTok becomes even more uncertain.
November 10: ByteDance asks the federal appeal court to vacate the U.S. government’s divestiture order that would force it to sell the app’s American operations by November 12. Filed as part of the lawsuit in D.C. District Court, ByteDance said it asked the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States for an extension, but hadn’t been granted one yet. (link)
November 12: This is the day that the Commerce Department’s ban on transactions with ByteDance, including providing internet hosting services to TikTok (which would stop the app from being able to operate in the U.S.), was set to go into effect. But instead the case becomes more convoluted as the U.S. government sends mixed messages about TikTok’s future.
The Commerce Department says it will abide by the preliminary injunction granted on October 30 by Judge Beetlestone, pending further legal developments. But, around the same time, the Justice Department files an appeal against Beetlestone’s ruling. Then Judge Nichols sets new deadlines (December 14 and 28) in the D.C. District Court lawsuit (the one filed by ByteDance against the Trump administration) for both sides to file motions and other new documents in the case. (link)
November 25: The Trump administration grants ByteDance a seven-day extension of the divestiture order. The deadline for ByteDance to finalize a sale of TikTok is now December 4.
This timeline will be updated as developments occur.
]]>
TechCrunch
These years were a period of fast growth for ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company behind TikTok. Originally launched in China as Douyin, the video-sharing app quickly was wildly successful in its domestic market before setting its sights on the rest of the world.
Zhang Yiming, a 29-year-old serial engineer, establishes ByteDance in Beijing.
Chinese product designer Alex Zhu launches Musical.ly.
ByteDance launches Douyin, which is regarded by many as a Musical.ly clone. It launches Douyin’s overseas version TikTok later that year.
TikTok merges with Musical.ly and and launches in the U.S., where it quickly becomes popular, the first social media app from a Chinese tech company to achieve that level of success there. But at the same time, its ownership leads to questions about national security and censorship, against the backdrop of the U.S.-China tariff wars and increased scrutiny of Chinese tech companies (including Huawei and ZTE) under the Trump administration.
November
ByteDance buys Musical.ly for $800 million to $1 billion. (link)
August
TikTok merges with Musical.ly and becomes available in the U.S. (link)
October
TikTok surpassed Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in downloads. (link)
November
Facebook launches TikTok rival Lasso. (link)
February
TikTok reaches one billion installs on the App Store and Google Play. (link)
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission fines TikTok $5.7 million over violation of children privacy law. (link)
May
TikTok tops the App Store for the fifth quarter in a row. (link)
September
TikTok is found censoring topics considered sensitive by the Beijing government. (link)
October
TikTok bans political ads (link) but does not appear to take action on hashtags related to American politics. (link)
TikTok taps corporate law firm K&L Gates for advice on content moderation in the U.S. (link)
U.S. lawmakers ask intelligence chief Joseph Maguire to investigate if TikTok poses a threat to national security. (link)
TikTok says it has never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and would not do so if asked. (link)
November
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reportedly opens a national security probe into TikTok. (link)
Instagram launches TikTok rival Reels. (link)
TikTok apologizes for removing a viral video about abuses against Uighurs. (link)
December
The U.S. Navy reportedly bans TikTok. (link)
The app is now a mainstay of online culture in America, especially among Generation Z, and its user base has grown even wider as people seek diversions during the COVID-19 pandemic. But TikTok faces an escalating series of government actions, creating confusion about its future in America.
A man wearing a shirt promoting TikTok is seen at an Apple store in Beijing on Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
January
Revived Dubsmash grows into TikTok’s imminent rival. (link)
March
TikTok lets outside experts examine its moderation practices at its “transparency center.” (link)
Senators introduce a bill to restrict the use of TikTok on government devices. (link)
TikTok brings in outside experts to craft content policies. (link)
April
TikTok introduces parental controls. (link)
TikTok tops two billion downloads. (link)
June
TikTok discloses how its content recommendation system works. (link)
YouTube launches TikTok rival. (link)
July
Facebook shuts down TikTok rival Lasso. (link)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the U.S. is looking to ban TikTok. (link)
TikTok announced a $200 million fund for U.S. creators. (link)
Trump told reporters he will use executive power to ban TikTok. (link)
After weeks of speculation, Trump signs an executive order in August against ByteDance. ByteDance begins seeking American buyers for TikTok, but the company also fights the executive order in court. A group of TikTok creators also file a lawsuit challenging the order. The last few months of 2020 become a relentless, and often confusing, flurry of events and new developments for TikTok observers, with no end in sight.
August
Reports say ByteDance agrees to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations and Microsoft will take over. (link)
Trump signals opposition to the ByteDance-Microsoft deal. (link)
Microsoft announces discussions about the TikTok purchase will complete no later than September 15. (link)
Trump shifts tone and says he expects a cut from the TikTok sale. (link)
TikTok broadens fact-checking partnerships ahead of the U.S. election. (link)
August 7: In the most significant escalation of tensions between the U.S. government and TikTok, Trump signs an executive order banning “transactions” with ByteDance in 45 days, or on September 20. (link). TikTok says the order was “issued without any due process” and would risk “undermining global businesses’ trust in the United States’ commitment to the rule of law.” (link)
August 9: TikTok reportedly plans to challenge the Trump administration ban. (link)
Oracle is also reportedly bidding for the TikTok sale. (link)
August 24: TikTok and ByteDance file their first lawsuit in federal court against the executive order, naming President Trump, Secretary of State Wilbur Ross and the U.S. Department of Commerce as defendants. The suit seeks to prevent the government from banning TikTok. Filed in U.S. District Court Central District of California (case number 2:20-cv-7672), it claims Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional. (link)
TikTok reaches 100 million users in the U.S. (link)
August 27: TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigns after 100 days. (link)
Kevin Mayer (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
Walmart says it has expressed interest in teaming up with Microsoft to bid for TikTok. (link)
August 28: China’s revised export laws could block TikTok’s divestment. (link)
September
China says it would rather see TikTok shuttered than sold to an American firm. (link)
September 13: Oracle confirms it is part of a proposal submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department in which Oracle will serve as the “trusted technology provider.” (link)
September 18: The Commerce Department publishes regulations against TikTok that will take effect in two phases. The app will no longer be distributed in U.S. app stores as of September 20, but it gets an extension on how it operates until November 12. After that, however, it will no longer be able to use internet hosting services in the U.S., rendering it inaccessible. (link)
On the same day as the Commerce Department’s announcement, two separate lawsuits are filed against Trump’s executive order against TikTok. One is filed by ByteDance, while the other is by three TikTok creators.
The one filed by TikTok and ByteDance is in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (case number 20-cv-02658), naming President Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the Commerce Department as defendants. It is very similar to the suit ByteDance previously filed in California. TikTok and ByteDance’s lawyers argue that Trump’s executive order violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the right to free speech, and due process and takings clauses.
The other lawsuit, filed by TikTok creators Douglas Marland, Cosette Rinab and Alec Chambers, also names the president, Ross and the Department of Commerce as defendants. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (case number 2:20-cv-04597), argues that Trump’s executive order “violates the first and fifth amendments of the U.S. Constitution and exceeds the President’s statutory authority.”
September 19: One day before the September 20 deadline that would have forced Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores, the Commerce Department extends it by a week to September 27. This is reportedly to give ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart time to finalize their deal.
On the same day, Marland, Rinab and Chambers, the three TikTok creators, file their first motion for a preliminary injunction against Trump’s executive order. They argue that the executive order violates freedom of speech and deprives them of “protected liberty and property interests without due process,” because if a ban goes into effect, it would prevent them from making income from TikTok-related activities, like promotional and branding work.
September 20: After filing the D.C. District Court lawsuit against Trump’s executive order, TikTok and ByteDance formally withdraw their similar pending suit in the U.S. District Court of Central District of California.
September 21: ByteDance and Oracle confirm the deal but send conflicting statements over TikTok’s new ownership. TikTok is valued at an estimated $60 billion. (link)
September 22: China’s state newspaper says China won’t approve the TikTok sale, labeling it “extortion.” (link)
September 23: TikTok and ByteDance ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to grant a preliminary injunction against the executive order, arguing that the September 27 ban removing TikTok from app stores will “inflict direct, immediate, and irreparable harm on Plaintiffs during the pendency of this case.” (link)
September 26: U.S. District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone denies Marland, Rinab and Chambers’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the executive order, writing that the three did not demonstrate “they will suffer immediate, irreparable harm if users and prospective users cannot download or update” TikTok after September 27, since they will still be able to use the app.
September 27: Just hours before the TikTok ban was set to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols grants ByteDance’s request for a preliminary injunction while the court considers whether the app poses a risk to national security. (link)
September 29: TikTok launches a U.S. election guide in the app. (link)
October
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 07: In this photo illustration, comedian Sarah Cooper’s page is displayed on the TikTok app. (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Snapchat launches a TikTok rival. (link)
TikTok says it’s enforcing actions against hate speech. (link)
TikTok partners with Shopify on social commerce (link)
October 13: After failing to win their first request for a preliminary injunction, TikTok creators Marland, Rinab and Chambers file a second one. This time, their request focuses on the Commerce Department’s November 12 deadline, which they say will make it impossible for users to access or post content on TikTok if it goes into effect.
October 30: U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone grants TikTok creators Marland, Chambers and Rinab’s second request for a preliminary injunction against the TikTok ban. (link)
November
November 7: After five days of waiting for vote counts, Joe Biden is declared the president-elect by CNN, followed by the AP, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox News. With Biden set to be sworn in as president on January 20, the future of Trump’s executive order against TikTok becomes even more uncertain.
November 10: ByteDance asks the federal appeal court to vacate the U.S. government’s divestiture order that would force it to sell the app’s American operations by November 12. Filed as part of the lawsuit in D.C. District Court, ByteDance said it asked the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States for an extension, but hadn’t been granted one yet. (link)
November 12: This is the day that the Commerce Department’s ban on transactions with ByteDance, including providing internet hosting services to TikTok (which would stop the app from being able to operate in the U.S.), was set to go into effect. But instead the case becomes more convoluted as the U.S. government sends mixed messages about TikTok’s future.
The Commerce Department says it will abide by the preliminary injunction granted on October 30 by Judge Beetlestone, pending further legal developments. But, around the same time, the Justice Department files an appeal against Beetlestone’s ruling. Then Judge Nichols sets new deadlines (December 14 and 28) in the D.C. District Court lawsuit (the one filed by ByteDance against the Trump administration) for both sides to file motions and other new documents in the case. (link)
November 25: The Trump administration grants ByteDance a seven-day extension of the divestiture order. The deadline for ByteDance to finalize a sale of TikTok is now December 4.
This timeline will be updated as developments occur.
]]>
TechCrunch
Enabling a network of trusted and neutral data intermediaries, and an oversight regime comprised of national monitoring authorities and a pan-EU coordinating body, are core components of the plan.
The move follows the European Commission’s data strategy announcement in February, when it said it wanted to boost data reuse to support a new generation of data-driven services powered by data-hungry artificial intelligence, as well as encouraging the notion of using ‘tech for good’ by enabling “more data and good quality data” to fuel innovation with a common public good (like better disease diagnostics) and improve public services.
The wider context is that personal data is already regulated in the bloc (such as under the General Data Protection Regulation; GDPR), which restricts reuse. While commercial considerations can limit how industrial data is shared.
The EU’s executive believes harmonzied requirements that set technical and/or legal conditions for data reuse are needed to foster legal certainty and trust — delivered via a framework that promises to maintain rights and protections and thus get more data usefully flowing.
The Commission sees major business benefits flowing from the proposed data governance regime. “Businesses, both small and large, will benefit from new business opportunities as well as from a reduction in costs for acquiring, integrating and processing data, from lower barriers to enter markets, and from a reduction in time-to-market for novel products and services,” it writes in a press release.
It has further data related proposals incoming in 2021, in addition to a package of digital services legislation it’s due to lay out early next month — as part of a wider reboot of industrial strategy which prioritises digitalization and a green new deal.
All legislative components of the strategy will need to gain the backing of the European Council and parliament so there’s a long road ahead for implementing the plan.
Data Governance Act
EU lawmakers often talk in shorthand about the data strategy being intended to encourage the sharing and reuse of “industrial data” — although the Data Governance Plan (DGA) unveiled today has a wider remit.
The Commission envisages the framework enabling the sharing of data that’s subject to data protection legislation — which means personal data; where privacy considerations may (currently) restrain reuse — as well as industrial data subject to intellectual property, or which contains trade secrets or other commercially sensitive information (and is thus not typically shared by its creators primarily for commercial reasons).
In a press conference on the data governance proposals, internal market commissioner Thierry Breton floated the notion of “data altruism” — saying the Commission wants to provide citizens with an organized way to share their own personal data for a common/public good, such as aiding research into rare diseases or helping cities map mobility for purposes like monitoring urban air quality.
“Through personal data spaces, which are novel personal information management tools and services, Europeans will gain more control over their data and decide on a detailed level who will get access to their data and for what purpose,” the Commission writes in a Q&A on the proposal.
It’s planning a public register where entities will be able to register as a “data altruism organisation” — provided they have a not-for-profit character; meet transparency requirements; and implement certain safeguards to “protect the rights and interests of citizens and companies” — with the aim of providing “maximum trust with minimum administrative burden”, as it puts it.
The DGA envisages different tools, techniques and requirements governing how private sector bodies share data vs private companies.
For public sector bodies there may be technical requirements (such as encryption or anonymization) attached to the data itself or further processing limitations (such as requiring it to take place in “dedicated infrastructures operated and supervised by the public sector”), as well as legally binding confidentiality agreements that must be signed by the reuser.
“Whenever data is being transferred to a reuser, mechanisms will be in place that ensure compliance with the GDPR and preserve the commercial confidentiality of the data,” the Commission’s PR says.
To encourage businesses to get on board with pooling their own data-sets — for the promise of a collective economic upside via access to bigger volumes of pooled data — the plan is for regulated data intermediaries/marketplaces to provide “neutral” data-sharing services, acting as the “trusted” go-between/repository so data can flow between businesses.
“To ensure this neutrality, the data-sharing intermediary cannot exchange the data for its own interest (e.g. by selling it to another company or using it to develop their own product based on this data) and will have to comply with strict requirements to ensure this neutrality,” the Commission writes on this.
Under the plan, intermediaries’ compliance with data handling requirements would be monitored by public authorities at a national level.
But the Commission is also proposing the creation of a new pan-EU body, called the European Data Innovation Board, that would try to knit together best practice across Member States — in what looks like a mirror of the steering/coordinating role undertaken by the European Data Protection Board (which links up the EU’s patchwork of data protection supervisory authorities).
“These data brokers or intermediaries that will provide for data sharing will do that in a way that your rights are protected and that you have choices,” said EVP Margrethe Vestager, who heads up the bloc’s digital strategy, also speaking at today’s press conference.
“So that you can also have personal data spaces where your data is managed. Because, initially, when you ask people they say well actually we do want to share but we don’t really know how to do it. And this is not only the technicalities — it’s also the legal certainty that’s missing. And this proposal will provide that,” she added.
Data localization requirements — or not?
The commissioners faced a number of questions over the hot button issue of international data transfers.
Breton was asked whether the DGA will include any data localization requirements. He responded by saying — essentially — that the rules will bake in a series of conditions which, depending on the data itself and the intended destination, may mean that storing and processing the data in the EU is the only viable option.
“On data localization — what we do is to set a GDPR-type of approach, through adequacy decisions and standard contractual clauses for only sensitive data through a cascading of conditions to allow the international transfer under conditions and in full respect of the protected nature of the data. That’s really the philosophy behind it,” Breton said. “And of course for highly sensitive data [such as] in the public health domain it is necessary to be able to set further conditions, depending on the sensitivity, otherwise… Member States will not share them.”
“For instance it could be possible to limit the reuse of this data into public secure infrastructures so that companies will come to use the data but not keep them. It could be also about restricting the number of access in third countries, restricting the possibility to further transfer the data and if necessary also prohibiting the transfer to a third country,” he went on, adding that such conditions would be “in full respect” of the EU’s WTO obligations.
In a section of its Q&A that deals with data localization requirements, the Commission similarly dances around the question, writing: “There is no obligation to store and process data in the EU. Nobody will be prohibited from dealing with the partner of their choice. At the same time, the EU must ensure that any access to EU citizen’s personal data and certain sensitive data is in compliance with its values and legislative framework.”
At the presser, Breton also noted that companies that want to gain access to EU data that’s been made available for reuse will need to have legal representation in the region. “This is important of course to ensure the enforceability of the rules we are setting,” he said. “It is very important for us — maybe not for other continents but for us — to be fully compliant.”
The commissioners also faced questions about how the planned data reuse rules would be enforced — given ongoing criticism over the lack of uniformly vigorous enforcement of Europe’s data protection framework, GDPR.
“No rule is any good if not enforced,” agreed Vestager. “What we are suggesting here is that if you have a data sharing service provider and they have notified themselves it’s then up to the authority with whom they have notified actually to monitor and to supervise the compliance with the different things that they have to live up to in order to preserve the protection of these legitimate interests — could be business confidentiality, could be intellectual property rights.
“This is a thing that we will keep on working on also in the future proposals that are upcoming — the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act — but here you have sort of a precursor that the ones who receive the notification in Member States they will also have to supervise that things are actually in order.”
Also responding on the enforcement point, Breton suggested enforcement would be baked in up front, such as by careful control of who could become a data reuse broker.
“[Firstly] we are putting forward common rules and harmonized rules… We are creating a large internal market for data. The second thing is that we are asking Member States to create specific authorities to monitor. The third thing is that we will ensure coherence and enforcement through the European Data Innovation Board,” he said. “Just to give you an example… enforcement is embedded. To be a data broker you will need to fulfil a certain number of obligations and if you fulfil these obligations you can be a neutral data broker — if you don’t
Alongside the DGA, the Commission also announced an Intellectual Property Action Plan.
Vestager said this aims to build on the EU’s existing IP framework with a number of supportive actions — including financial support for SMEs involved in the Horizon Europe R&D program to file patents.
The Commission is also considering whether to reform the framework for filing standards essential patents. But in the short term Vestager said it would aim to encourage industry to engage in forums aimed at reducing litigation.
“One example could be that the Commission could set up an independent system of third party essentiality checks in view of improving legal certainty and reducing litigation costs,” she added of the potential reform, noting that protecting IP is an important component of the bloc’s industrial strategy.
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Rebalancing big data power dynamics to tip the scales away from big tech is another stated aim.
Breton likened the EU’s ambitious push to encourage industrial data sharing and rebalance platform power to work done in the past to organize the region’s air space and other physical infrastructure — albeit, with a lot less time to get the job done given the blistering pace of digital innovation.
“This will require of course political vision — that we have — and willingness, that I believe we have too, and smart regulation, hopefully you will judge, to set the right rules and investment in key infrastructure,” said Breton.
During the talk, he gave a detailed overview of how the flotilla of legislative proposals which are being worked on by EU lawmakers will set rules intended to support European businesses and governments to safely unlock the value of industrial and public data and drive the next decades of economic growth.
“We have been brave enough to set our rules in the personal data sphere and this is what we need to do now for government and public and industrial data. Set the rules. The European rules. Everyone will be welcome in Europe, that’s extremely important — provided they respect our rules,” said Breton.
“We don’t have one minute to lose,” he added. “The battle for industrial data is starting now and the battlefield may be Europe so we need to get ready — and this is my objective.”
EU lawmakers are drafting rules for how (non-personal) data can be used and shared; who will get access to them; and how rights can be guaranteed under the framework, per Breton. And he argued that concerns raised by European privacy challenges to international data transfers — reflected in the recent Schrems II ruling — are not limited to privacy and personal data.
“These worries are in fact at the heart of the Single Market for data that I am building,” he said. “These worries are clear in the world we are entering when individuals or companies want to keep control over its data. The key question is, therefore, how to organize this control while allowing data flow — which is extremely important in the data economy.”
An open single European market for data must recognize that not all data are the same — “in terms of their sensitivity” — Breton emphasized, pointing to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) data protection framework as “the proof of that”.
“Going forward, there are also sensitive industrial data that should benefit from specific conditions when they are accessed, used or shared,” he went on. “This is a case for instance for some sensitive public data [such as] from public hospitals, but also anonymized data that remains sensitive, mixed data which are difficult to handle.”
At one point during the talk he gave the example of European hospitals during the pandemic not being able to share data across borders to help in the fight against the virus because of the lack of a purpose-built framework to securely enable such data flows.
“I want our SMEs and startups, our public hospitals, our cities and many other actors to use more data — to make them available, to value them, to share them — but for this we need to generate the trust,” he added.
The first legislative plank of the transformation to a single European data economy is a Data Governance Act (DGA) — which Breton said EU lawmakers will present tomorrow, after a vote on the proposal this afternoon.
“With this act we are defining a European approach to data sharing,” he noted on the DGA. “This new regulation will facilitate data sharing across sectors and Member States. And it will put those who generate the data in the driving seat — moving away from the current practices of the big tech platforms.
“Concretely, with this legislation, we create the conditions to allow access to a reuse of sensitive public data, creating a body of harmonized rules for the single market.”
A key component of building the necessary trust for the data economy will mean creating rules that state “European highly sensitive data should be able to be stored and processed in the EU”, Breton also said, signalling that data localization will be a core component of the strategy — in line with a number of recent public remarks in which he’s argued it’s not protectionist for European data to be stored in Europe.
“Without such a possibility Member States will never agree to open their data hold,” Breton went on, saying that while Europe will be “open” with data, it will not be offering a “naive” data free-for-all.
The Commission also wants the data framework to support an ecosystem of data brokers whose role Breton said will be to connect data owners and data users “in a neutral manner” — suggesting this will empower companies to have stronger control over the data they generate, (i.e the implication being rather than the current situation where data-mining platform giants can use their market power to asset-strip weaker third parties).
“We are shifting here the product,” he said. “And we promote also data altruism — the role of sharing data, industrial or personal, for common good.”
Breton also noted that the forthcoming data governance proposal will include a shielding provision — meaning data actors will be required to take steps to avoid having to comply with what he called “abusive and unlawful” data access requests for data held in Europe from third countries.
“This is a major point. It is not a question of calling into question our international judicial or policy cooperation. We cannot tolerate abuses,” he said, specifying three off-limits examples (“unauthorized access; access that do offer sufficient legal guarantees; or fishing expeditions), adding: “By doing so we are ensuring that European law and the guarantees it carries is respected. This is about enforcing our own rules.”
Breton also touched on other interlocking elements of the policy strategy which regional lawmakers see as crucial to delivering a functional data framework: Namely the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) — which are both due to be set out in detail early next month.
The DSA will put “a clear responsibility and obligation on platforms and the content that is spread”, said Breton.
While the companion ex ante regulation, the DMA, will “frame the behaviours of gatekeepers — of systemic actors in the Single Market — and target their behaviors against their competitors or customers”; aka further helping to pin and clip the wings of big tech.
“With this set of regulation I just want to set up the rules and that the rules are clear — based on our values,” he added.
He also confirmed that interoperability and portability will be a key feature of the EU’s hoped for data transformation.
“We are working on this on several strands,” he said on this. “The first is standards for interoperability. That’s absolutely key for sectoral data spaces that we will create and very important for the data flows. You will see that we will create a European innovation data board — set in the DGA today — which will help the Commission in setting and working the right standards.”
While combating “blocking efforts and abusive behaviors” by platform gatekeepers — which could otherwise put an artificial limit on the value of the data economy — will be “the job of the DMA”, he noted.
A fourth pillar of the data strategy — which Breton referred to as a “data act” — will be introduced in 2021, with the aim of “increasing fairness in the data economy by clarifying data usage rights in business to business and business to government settings”.
“We will also consider enhanced data portability rights to give individuals more control — which is extremely important — over the data they produce,” he added. “And we will have a look at the intellectual property rights framework.”
He also noted that key infrastructure investments will be vital — pointing to the Commission’s plan to build a European industrial cloud and related strategic tech investment priorities such as in compute power capacity, building out next-gen connectivity and support for cutting edges technologies like quantum encryption.
Privacy campaigner Max Schrems, who had been invited as the other guest speaker, raised the issue of enforceability — pointing out that Ireland’s data protection authority, which is responsible for overseeing a large number of major tech companies in the region, still hasn’t issued any decisions on cross-border complaints filed under the 2.5 year old GDPR framework.
Breton agreed that enforcement will be a vital piece of the puzzle — claiming EU lawmakers are alive to the problem of enforcement “bottlenecks” in the GDPR.
“We need definitely clear, predictable, implementable rules — and this is what is driving me when I am regulating against the data market. But also what you will find behind the DSA and the DMA with an ex ante regulation to be able to apply it immediately and everywhere in Europe, not only in one country, everywhere at the same time,” he said. “Just to be able to make sure that things are happening quick. In this digital space we have to be fast.”
“So we will again make sure in DSA that Member State authorities can ask platforms to remove immediately content cross-border — like, for example, if you want an immediate comparison, the European Arrest Warrant.”
The Commission will also have the power to step in via cooperation at the European level, Breton further noted.
“So you see we are putting in rules, we are not naive, we understand pretty well where we have the bottleneck — and again we try to regulate. And also, in parallel, that’s very important because like everywhere where you have regulation you need to have sanctions — you will have appropriate sanctions,” he said, adding: “We learn the lessons from the GDPR.”
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