We’ve had a pretty good track record over years of spotting astroturf operations from the European Copyright Directive to ad-supported piracy. Here’s what we believe is the latest–“the People’s Bid for TikTok,” pointed out to us by one of our favorite artists.

The first indication that something is fake–we call these “clues”–is in the premise of the campaign. Remember that the key asset of TikTok is the company’s algorithm. That algorithm is apparently responsible for curating the content users see on their feeds. This algorithm is highly sophisticated and is considered a key factor in TikTok’s success. The U.S. government has argued that the algorithm could be manipulated by the government of the People’s Republic of China to influence what messaging is promoted or suppressed.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a law requiring TikTok’s PRC-based parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the U.S. by mid-January 2025. This law was the culmination of years of Congressional scrutiny and debate over the app’s potential risks.

At the core of President Biden’s concerns about TikTok is the algorithm. Not surprisingly, the People’s Republic of China has made it very clear that the algorithm is not for sale. This position was confirmed when TikTok itself admitted that the Chinese government would not allow the sale of its algorithm. China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao indicated that officials would seek to block any transfer of the app’s technology, stating that the country would “firmly oppose” a forced sale. That likely means that even if ByteDance were to sell TikTok–to “the people” or otherwise–the algorithm would remain under Chinese control, which undermines the U.S. government’s objective.

So–who is behind the “People’s Bid” since given that the “People’s Bid” seems to be making a proposal that will only be acceptable to the People’s Republic of China? We say that because of this FAQ on the People’s Bid site disclaiming any interest in acquiring the algorithm that PRC has essentially claimed as a state secret for some reason:

The People’s Bid has no interest in acquiring TikTok’s algorithm [which is nice since the algo is not for sale]. This is not an attempt to rinse and repeat the formula that has allowed Big Tech companies to reap enormous profits by scraping and exploiting user data. The People’s Bid will ensure that TikTok users control their data and experience by using the app on a rebuilt digital infrastructure that gives more power to users.

Oh no, The People’s Bid has no interest in that tacky algorithm which wasn’t for sale anyway. Good of them. So who is “them”? It appears, although it isn’t quite clear, that the entity doing the acquiring isn’t “The People’s Bid” at all, it’s something called “Project Liberty.”

The FAQ tells us a little bit about Project Liberty:

Project Liberty builds solutions that help people take back control of their digital lives. This means working to ensure that everyone has a voice, choice, and stake in the future of the Internet. Project Liberty has invested over half a billion dollars to develop infrastructure and alliances that will return power to the people.

They kind of just let that “half a billion dollars” drop in the dark of the FAQ. What that tells us is that somebody has a shit-ton of money who is interested in stopping the TikTok ban. So who is involved with this “Project Liberty”? The usual suspects, starting with Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and a slew of cronies from Berkman, Stanford, MIT, etc. Color us shocked, just shocked.

But these people never spend their own money and probably aren’t working for free, so who’s got the dough? Someone who doesn’t seem to care about acquiring the TikTok algorithm from the Chinese Communist Party?

Forbes tells us that this transaction is just a little bit different than what “The People’s Bid” or even the “Liberty Project” would have you believe if all you knew about it was from information on their website. The money seems to be coming in part, maybe in very large part, from one Frank McCourt whom you may remember as a former owner of the Los Angeles Dollars…sorry, Dodgers. In fairness, McCourt isn’t exactly making his plans a secret. He had his Project Liberty issue a press release as “The People’s Bid for TikTok”, which is actually Frank McCourt’s bid for TikTok as far as we can tell and as reported by Forbes:

Billionaire investor and entrepreneur Frank McCourt is organizing a bid to buy TikTok through Project Liberty, an organization to which he’s pledged $500 million that aims to fight for a safe, healthier internet where user data is owned by users themselves rather than by tech giants like TikTok parent ByteDance, Meta and Alphabet.

That’s more like it. We knew there was a sugar daddy in there somewhere. That’s much more in the Lessig style. Big favor, little bad mouth.

Of course, users owning their data is not the entire story by a long shot. Authors owned their books and Google still used the vast Google Books project to train AI.

Forbes adds this insight about Mr. McCourt:

Best known as the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, McCourt spent most of the past decade focused on investing the approximately $850 million in proceeds from the team’s 2012 sale via his company McCourt Global. 

He sprinkled money into sports, real estate, technology, media and an investment firm focused on private credit. In January 2023, McCourt stepped down as CEO of McCourt Global to focus on Project Liberty but remains executive chairman and 100% owner. 

McCourt’s assets are worth an estimated $1.4 billion, landing him on Forbes’ billionaires list for the first time this year—though his wealth is a far cry from the estimated $220 billion valuation of ByteDance.

Which brings us to ByteDance. Is there another Silicon Valley money funnel with an interest in ByteDance? One is Sequoia Capital, which was also an original investor in Google which was an original investor in Professor Lessig and his various enterprises including Creative Commons. Sequoia’s ByteDance investment came in the form of one Neil Shen who runs Sequoia’s China operation recently spun off from the mothership. If you don’t recognize Neil Shen, he’s the former member (until 2023) of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party and its United Front Work operation. (According to a Congressional investigative report, The United Front operation is a strategic effort to influence and control various groups and individuals both within China and internationally. This strategy involves a mix of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations aimed at shaping political environments to favor the CCP’s interests. United front work includes “America Changle Association, which housed a secret PRC police station in New York City that was raided by the FBI in October 2022.”)

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In plainer terms, it’s about the money. According to CNN:

McCourt said he is working with the investment firm Guggenheim Securities and the law firm Kirkland & Ellis to help assemble the bid, adding that the push is backed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web [OMG, it must be legit!].

McCourt joins a host of other would-be suitors angling to pick up a platform used by 170 million Americans. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced in March he’s assembling a bid, as well as Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian chairman of the private venture capital firm O’Leary Ventures.

TikTok, meanwhile, has indicated that it’s not for sale and the company has instead begun to mount a fight against the new law. The company sued to block the law earlier this month, saying that spinning off from its Chinese parent company is not feasible and that the legislation would lead to a ban of the app in the United States starting in January of next year.

But it’s the people‘s bid, right? Don’t be evil, ya’ll.

Let’s boil it down: TikTok would have been, up until President Biden signed the sell-or-ban bill into law, a HUGE IPO. It’s also a big chunk of ByteDance’s valuation, which means it’s a big chunk of Neil Shen’s carried interest in all likelihood. TikTok is no longer a huge IPO, in fact, it probably won’t be an IPO at all in its current configuration, particularly since the CCP has told the world that TikTok doesn’t own its core asset, the very algorithm that has so many people addicted (and addiction which is what a buyer is really buying).

So the astroturf is not the Liberty Project of the People’s Bid. Whatever “the People’s Bid” really is, it’s much more likely to be as the financial press has described it–Frank McCourt’s bid. But only for the most high-minded and pure-souled reasons.

It’s about the money. Stay tuned, we’ll be keeping an eye on this one.