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Comment by pier25 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why they didn't buy TikTok when it was starting to become popular like they did with Instagram or Whatsapp.

Maybe they thought it was going to fail like Vine and other short video platforms.

Considering the amount of gov-relations it took for Giphy acquisition https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/metas-acquisition-giphy-... it just seems very likely that a TikTok purchase would be blocked by at least one regulator.

> I wonder why they didn't buy TikTok when it was starting to become popular like they did with Instagram or Whatsapp.

ByteDance was a large company before TikTok and had other successful products. TikTok actually developed out of a billion dollar acquisition Bytedance made[1]. It wasn't for sale. Sort of like how Tinder wasn't for sale because it was owned by IAC (Match, OkCupid).

Also regulatory environment in the US and in China would make it unfeasible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance

I remember when it was still Musical.ly, man I'm old

Yup. I remember my younger cousin showing me Musical.ly and thinking how horrible the app seemed. Should have realized she was ahead of the curve!

Tencent wanted to buy Bytedance, the company who made TikTok. The founder of Bytedance refused. Surely he would refuse Facebook too.

Even if US govt allowed FB to buy tiktok, there is no way ccp would approve the deal. They have a board seat.

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