TikTok Working on Standalone App for American Users

TikTok’s standalone U.S. app will reportedly use a separate algorithm and data system.

That’s according to a report Wednesday (July 9) by Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter. These moves, the sources say, set the stage for a potential sale of TikTok U.S. by its China-based owner ByteDance.

The video sharing platform’s plans to migrate its 170 million American users to a new app were first reported Sunday (July 6) by The Information, though the Reuters report shared technical details of this effort for the first time.

For its part, TikTok has dismissed the Reuters report, saying it was “basesd on anonymous uninformed sources” and “factually inaccurate.”

Employees of TikTok told Reuters that the company had in the last several months been building a new, U.S.-specific version of the video-sharing platform by transferring and duplicating the application’s codebase — which includes artificial intelligence (AI) models, algorithms, features and user data — from the global platform.

The project, dubbed “M2,” has a September deadline, Reuters added, noting it could mark the largest technical break between TikTok U.S. and the company’s global business. The change is expected to affect how American users access global content, and how creators outside the U.S. earn revenue from the platform.

According to the report, the new American app is designed to operate independently, much like Douyin, a version of TikTok found only in China.

What’s not clear, the report added, is how much new content from the larger TikTok ecosystem will make it into the U.S. version, as the new app is expected to just use data from American users to train its recommendation algorithms.

Sources added this would further distance it from TikTok’s global systems, meaning most users will be recommended content created in the U.S.

The effort to cleave TikTok U.S. from the larger platform has been going on for months.  ByteDance has been working to prevent a ban of the app in the U.S. following a law last year that had required the company to divest TikTok by Jan. 19.

The law, passed under President Joe Biden, was driven by national security concerns, with the government arguing that ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government could allow Beijing to collect data on Americans.

Since taking office earlier this year, President Donald Trump has extended the Jan. 19 deadline multiple times. The current deadline is now Sept. 17, with the White House working on a deal to find new buyers for TikTok U.S.