That's pointless misdirection.
"I'll burn down your house unless you sell it to me for $1"
See, that's not arson, because you always had a way out.
"I'll burn down your house unless you sell it to me for $1"
See, that's not arson, because you always had a way out.
1/Selling something doesn't destroy it
2/You don't want to destroy it because you want to fetch a high price for it
3/Nobody's offering $1 for TikTok, and nobody expects ByteDance to accept $1 for it
4/A fair market price would make ByteDance whole
The only similarity between condemnation and arson is that you don't get to live in the house anymore. If your house is condemned and you get fair market value for it, you can buy a new house with it. If your house is burned to the ground, you have nothing.
Similarly, if ByteDance sells TikTok to someone else, TikTok can be to its users exactly how it has been all along. They've simply chosen not to, at least not yet. And it's in their best interest to characterize it as a ban to win hearts and minds, even though that characterization of "banning" is something they're choosing to do to themselves by shutting it down instead of selling.