‘Tiktok Ttaerigi’ as the Biggest Boon? ... Meta Stock Rises After Poor Earnings

US Federal Communications Commission Commissioner: "No Alternative to Banning TikTok"
Foreign Investment Review Board Also Investigates Whether TikTok Threatens US National Security

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoon Seul-gi] As calls to regulate the video-sharing platform TikTok have emerged, the stock price of Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, surged. Snap Inc., the parent company of another social networking service (SNS), Snapchat, also saw its stock rise.

On the 1st (local time), Meta closed trading at $95.20, up $2.04 (2.19%). Snap also closed the day at $10.25, up $0.34 (3.43%).

On the 27th, Meta experienced an 'earnings shock,' wiping out $793 billion (approximately 1,126 trillion KRW) of market capitalization in one year. Meta’s stock price plummeted 24.6% that day after releasing third-quarter results that fell short of expectations, closing at $97.94 per share, the lowest price in six years. This was the first time Meta’s stock fell below $100 since February 2016.

However, as 'TikTok regulation' was mentioned in U.S. political circles, Meta and Snap stocks rose together. According to CNBC, Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), stated in an interview with Axios that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) should take measures to ban TikTok, a video-sharing platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

CFIUS is an organization that reviews national security risks of foreign investments in the U.S. and has previously investigated whether TikTok poses a threat to U.S. national security.

Commissioner Carr emphasized, "I believe there is no other way besides banning (TikTok)," adding, "There is no world where data can be sufficiently protected to ensure it does not fall back into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party."

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement, "Commissioner Carr has no role in confidential discussions with the U.S. government regarding TikTok and appears to be expressing views unrelated to his role as an FCC commissioner," adding, "We are confident that we are working toward an agreement that satisfies all reasonable national security concerns."

Meanwhile, the U.S. government's scrutiny of TikTok has continued for over two years. As TikTok users surge in the U.S., there are concerns that Chinese big tech companies like TikTok could hand over Americans’ data to the Chinese government.

In 2020, the Trump administration attempted to ban TikTok but failed, and President Joe Biden also raised the level of scrutiny against China by signing an executive order last September that specifies and expands the list of factors CFIUS considers when reviewing investments related to national security risks.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.