Frank McCourt,
Founder of Project Liberty and Executive Chairman of McCourt
Global, announces that Project Liberty is building a consortium to
purchase TikTok and rearchitect the platform to put people in
control of their digital identities and data
Leading technologists and academics, including
Jonathan Haidt, David Clark, and Sir Tim
Berners-Lee express support for Project Liberty's vision for
a more open, inclusive and responsible internet
NEW
YORK, May 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/
-- Frank McCourt, Founder of Project Liberty and
Executive Chairman of McCourt Global, today announced that Project
Liberty is organizing a bid to acquire the popular social media
platform TikTok in the U.S., with the goal of placing people and
data empowerment at the center of the platform's design and
purpose.
Working in consultation with Guggenheim Securities, the
investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim
Partners, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law
firms, as well as world-renowned technologists, academics,
community leaders, parents and engaged citizens, this bid for
TikTok offers an innovative, alternative vision for the platform's
infrastructure – one that allows people to reclaim agency over
their digital identities and data by proposing to migrate the
platform to a new digital open-source protocol. In launching the
bid, McCourt and his partners are seizing this opportunity to
return control and value back into the hands of individuals and
provide Americans with a meaningful voice, choice, and stake in the
future of the web.
"The foundation of our digital infrastructure is broken, and
it's time to fix it. We can, and must, do more to safeguard the
health and well-being of our children, families, democracy and
society. We see this potential acquisition as an incredible
opportunity to catalyze an alternative to the current tech model
that has colonized the internet," said Frank McCourt. "By bringing leading
academics, technologists, behavioral scientists, psychologists and
economic experts together with community partners, parents and
citizens, we believe we can preserve – and enhance – the TikTok
experience by giving individuals and creators on the platform the
value and control they deserve regarding who has access to their
data and how it is used. This country has long been the global
driver of ground-breaking innovation, and I encourage anyone who's
interested in reclaiming your data from Big Tech to engage with us
and take a step forward to redefine the future of the internet for
the people."
The vision this bid effort puts forward for TikTok is informed
and supported by the work of Project Liberty, a far-reaching effort
dedicated to building a stronger, healthier internet
infrastructure. Founded through a half-billion-dollar investment
from McCourt, Project Liberty leverages the research and technology
expertise of its Project Liberty Institute – a global nonprofit
organization with a network of collaborators including
academic partners Georgetown University, Stanford
University, and Sciences Po, as well as more than 90 civic
organizations – and its technology labs team, which develops new
and innovative solutions that aim to accelerate the transition to
an open, inclusive data economy. Project Liberty's activities
include the release of the
open-source Decentralized Social Networking
Protocol (DSNP), a piece of digital public infrastructure which
will serve as the bedrock of a more equitable web and support a new
era of innovation that empowers people over platforms and serves
the common good.
This bid for TikTok – driven by Project Liberty's vision for our
tech future – has already mobilized a uniquely diverse coalition of
experts, citizens and activists, who recognize the challenges posed
by our current digital infrastructure and believe in innovative
technology solutions to address them. Supporters include:
"When it comes to our society's relationship
with technology, we're at a tipping point, and Frank McCourt and Project Liberty understand the
urgency of this issue. Their vision for TikTok, redesigned for
healthier dynamics, is the type of innovative solution needed to
move ahead in the digital age. Social media is not going away, but
it is evolving, and McCourt wants it to evolve in ways that are far
less harmful to children and teens than it is today." –
Jonathan Haidt, renowned social
psychologist and author of New York
Times bestseller "The Anxious Generation"
"This proposal has my support. The web I
invented was to provide power and value to individuals, which they
do not have at the moment. Users should have an ability to control
their own data, to share it with other people and organizations as
they choose. A TikTok utilizing open internet protocols, such
as Solid, will embrace the critical values of privacy, data
sovereignty, and user mental health." – Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Chief Technology Officer &
Co-Founder of Inrupt, Director of the open-source protocol,
Solid
"Today's unregulated social media landscape
allows platforms to target children and teens, promoting dangerous
and addictive content to maximize their time online and drive
profits for Big Tech companies. As the parent of a child who was
victimized through social media, I fully support Frank McCourt's and Project Liberty's vision for
TikTok, which allows users to access the incredible sharing power
of the internet without subjecting youth and adults alike to
exploitation and sacrificing our society's collective wellbeing." –
Deb Schmill, Mother of Becca,
Founder and President of the Becca Schmill Foundation
"Frank McCourt's
and Project Liberty's proposal to purchase TikTok represents a
dramatic and unique moment in the evolution of social media. Driven
by a very different set of motivations than the 'Big Tech'
providers of social media, this bid's primary objective is to give
individuals more control over their experience, control over how
their data is used, and prevent harms, especially to younger users.
This potential future for TikTok, with its reshaping using the
capabilities of open-source protocols, such as DSNP, can be a
powerful way for us to build a social media experience that
benefits people while limiting manipulation and harm." –
David Clark, Senior Research
Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory, DSNP Advisor
Follow along with additional updates about this development at
projectliberty.io.
ABOUT FRANK MCCOURT
Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is a civic
entrepreneur and the executive chairman of McCourt Global, a
private family company committed to building a better future
through its work across the real estate, sports, technology, media,
and capital investment industries, as well as its significant
philanthropic activities. Frank is proud to extend his family's
130-year legacy of merging community and social impact with
financial results, an approach that started when the original
McCourt Company was launched in Boston in 1893.
He is a passionate supporter of multiple academic, civic, and
cultural institutions and initiatives. He is the founder of Project
Liberty, a far-reaching, $500 million
initiative focused on leading a movement of people who want to take
back control of their lives in the digital age by reclaiming a
voice, choice, and stake in a better internet. The project includes
the development of a groundbreaking, open-source internet protocol
called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol
(DSNP), a piece of digital public infrastructure which will serve
as the bedrock of a more equitable web and support a new era of
innovation that empowers people over platforms and serves the
common good. Project Liberty also includes the Project Liberty
Institute, launched with founding partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, and Sciences Po in Paris, to advance research, bring together
technologists and social scientists, and develop a governance model
for the internet's next era.
Frank has served on Georgetown
University's Board of Directors for many years and, in 2013,
made a $100 million founding
investment to create Georgetown
University's McCourt School of Public Policy. He expanded on
this in 2021 with a $100 million
investment to catalyze an inclusive pipeline of public policy
leaders and put the school on a path to becoming tuition-free.
Frank owns the French football club Olympique de Marseille and formerly owned the Los Angeles
Dodgers. With family roots in the construction business dating back
to the late 19th century, Frank has built upon this history with
initiatives ranging from the development of Boston's Seaport to large, mixed-use projects
in Dallas, London, Miami, New York
City, and elsewhere.
Frank graduated from Georgetown
University. He is married to Monica
McCourt and is the proud father of seven.
In 2024, Frank released his first book, OUR BIGGEST FIGHT:
Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital
Age.
ABOUT PROJECT LIBERTY
Project Liberty is leading a movement of people who want to
take back control of their lives in the digital age by reclaiming a
voice, choice, and stake in a better internet. Launched privately
in 2019 and publicly in 2021 by civic entrepreneur Frank McCourt and supported by a $500-million commitment, Project Liberty
encompasses the work of the Project Liberty Institute—a 501(c)(3)
with an international partner network that includes Georgetown
University, Stanford University, Sciences Po, and other leading
academic institutions and civic organizations—and a technological
team that is focused on developing the next generation of digital
infrastructure. Project Liberty's activities include the release of
the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), a
piece of digital public infrastructure which will serve as the
bedrock of a more equitable web and support a new era of innovation
that empowers people over platforms and serves the common good.
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SOURCE Project Liberty