“我们不需要算法”：弗兰克·麦考特希望改变 TikTok 的工作方式

【中美创新时报2024 年 5 月 17 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）出生于波士顿的房地产开发商弗兰克·麦考特 (Frank McCourt) 计划收购社交媒体巨头 TikTok 在美国的业务，最有趣的一点是：该计划并非出于担心这家中资公司对国家安全构成威胁。这位出生于波士顿的亿万富翁致力于让互联网用户（个人，而不是公司）控制他们的个人数据。《波士顿环球报》记者海华沙·布雷（Hiawatha Bray）对此作了下述详细报道。

相反，这一切都与“自由计划”有关，这是麦考特对在线服务进行全球改革的计划，旨在让互联网用户（个人，而不是公司）控制他们的个人数据。这是一场历时三年的改革运动，其灵感来自于麦考特在社交媒体上的痛苦经历，并得到了他自己 5 亿美元的资金支持。

麦考特在接受采访时表示：“整个互联网已经被一堆大型平台占领，而 TikTok 就是其中之一。” “我们应该有一个替代版本的互联网，让我们可以控制我们的身份和数据，”他说，不受任何人的干扰，“无论是公司还是中国共产党。”

美国国会上个月向麦考特敞开了大门。由于担心中国政府利用 TikTok 监视美国用户并传播亲中宣传，立法者通过了一项法案，迫使 TikTok 的中国母公司字节跳动在 270 天内出售其在美国的业务，或者停止分发 TikTok 的产品。在美国非常流行的智能手机应用程序。

现在的问题是寻找有意愿和资金收购 TikTok 的人。麦考特表示，他正在与古根海姆证券公司和凯易律师事务所合作，组建一批能够左右这笔交易的投资者。

麦考特的计划赢得了万维网发明者蒂姆·伯纳斯·李的支持，他多年来一直致力于研究名为 Solid 的数据隐私协议。麦考特还得到了贝卡·施米尔基金会 (Becca Schmill Foundation) 的创始人黛布·施米尔 (Deb Schmill) 和心理学家乔纳森·海特 (Jonathan Haidt) 的支持，前者是尼达姆非营利组织，致力于打击在线剥削儿童的行为，后者的新书《焦虑的一代》认为，当今的社交媒体服务对儿童和青少年有害。

尽管如此，从头开始建立一个替代系统，并与社交媒体的老牌巨头较量，似乎不太实际。但收购 TikTok 及其 1.7 亿用户可能会给 Liberty 项目带来构建更加保护隐私的在线生态系统所需的关键力量。

麦考特的财富建立在波士顿房地产开发交易的基础上，例如波士顿港的联合码头公寓。2001年，麦考特竞购波士顿红袜队，但没有成功。（波士顿环球报老板约翰·亨利和他的合伙人汤姆·维尔纳于次年收购了该球队。）

麦考特于 2004 年收购了洛杉矶道奇队，并将球队迁至西海岸。他在球队的八年任期因财务管理不善的指控而受到损害，尽管麦考特陷入了一场丑陋的离婚之中。该球队于 2011 年申请破产保护，但麦考特在 2012 年以 20 亿美元的价格出售了道奇队。

在整个危机期间，麦考特在 Facebook 上饱受仇恨言论的打击，这次经历让他相信社交媒体公司已经变得太强大了。2021 年，他启动了“自由计划”，旨在通过创建处理个人数据的新技术来纠正这种平衡。它是一个混合型组织，一部分是一个非营利性智囊团，得到了乔治城大学、斯坦福大学和法国巴黎政治大学的投入，另一部分是一个为社交媒体开发隐私保护技术的营利性组织。

自由（Liberty ）项目的核心是去中心化社交网络协议（DSNP）。这是一套处理社交媒体数据的标准，类似于电子邮件或网页的标准，但与现状有很大不同。基于 DSNP 的社交网络不会控制其用户的个人数据。相反，用户可以决定分享多少信息。未经用户明确许可，社交网络不会保留任何数据。

在这样的系统中，用户可以轻松地从一个社交网络切换到另一个社交网络，而无需重建所有网络关系。如果现有的社交媒体公司以这种方式运作，你可以随时从埃隆·马斯克的 X 切换到马克·扎克伯格的替代服务 Threads，并把所有的关注者都带上，而不必为每项服务建立单独的名册。

自由项目顾问、麻省理工学院计算机科学和人工智能实验室的高级研究科学家大卫·克拉克（ David Clark ）表示，DSNP 还可以让用户微调他们的社交媒体服务。例如，这样的 TikTok 版本可能会让用户从多种视频推荐算法中进行选择。成年人可能会看到更前卫的视频选择，同时为孩子们提供更温和的版本。 “它让你可以更好地控制你的体验质量，”克拉克说。

但构建基于 DSNP 的网络似乎几乎是不可能的。Facebook、X 和谷歌不会废除他们的商业模式。尽管用户抱怨失去隐私和假新闻，但用户仍然不断回来寻求更多信息。其他社交网络屡屡失败，到目前为止，只有拥有约 2000 万用户的社交网络 MeWe 承诺使用 DSNP。

如果麦考特和他正在召集的投资者能够成功，出售 TikTok 可能会改变游戏规则。仍存在许多不确定性。TikTok 已针对强制其出售的法律提起诉讼，称其侵犯了用户的第一修正案权利。 一些公民自由主义者认为这场诉讼很有可能成功。

但即使 TikTok 输了，中国政府也表示，该公司的任何买家都不会被允许将 TikTok 强大的视频推荐软件纳入交易中。该软件对于 TikTok 的广泛普及至关重要，许多潜在竞标者可能不希望该公司没有它。

麦考特的整个计划是改变 TikTok 的运作方式。 “我们不需要这种算法，”他说，“这使我们成为一个非常有趣的潜在买家。” 由于如果没有算法，TikTok 的价值将大大降低，麦考特财团可能会以便宜的价格收购它。

即便如此，随着新所有者实施新协议，TikTok 的用户是否会留下来仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。人们经常谈论一款关于隐私的好游戏，但更关心的是娱乐内容和易用性。除非新的 TikTok 至少和今天的版本一样有趣，否则很可能会大量迁移到 Instagram Reels 和 YouTube Shorts 等山寨服务。

但麦考特相信社交媒体用户已经厌倦了侵入性广告和攻击性内容。基于隐私友好协议的新版 TikTok 可能正是这些用户所等待的。

“我们看到越来越多的人准备离开，”麦考特说。“总得有个地方让他们去吧。”

题图：智能手机屏幕上的 TikTok 标志。KIICHIRO SATO/美联社

附原英文报道：

‘We don’t want the algorithm’: Frank McCourt wants to transform the way TikTok works

The Boston-born billionaire is on a crusade to put internet users — people, not corporations — in control of their personal data

By Hiawatha Bray Globe Staff,Updated May 16, 2024 

Here’s the most interesting thing about Boston-born real estate developer Frank McCourt’s plan to acquire the US operations of social media titan TikTok: It’s not driven by fears that the Chinese-owned company poses a threat to national security.

Instead it’s all about Project Liberty, McCourt’s plan for a global overhaul of online services aimed at putting internet users — people, not corporations — in control of their personal data. It’s a three-year-old crusade inspired by McCourt’s bitter experiences with social media and backed by $500 million of his own money.

“The entire internet has been colonized by a bunch of large platforms, and one of them happens to be TikTok,” McCourt said in an interview. “We should have an alternative version of the internet where we get to control our identity and our data,” he said, with no interference from anyone, “whether it’s a corporation or the Chinese Communist Party.”

The US Congress opened the door to McCourt last month. Motivated by fears that the Chinese government is using TikTok to spy on US users and spread pro-Chinese propaganda, lawmakers passed a bill to compel TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its operations in the United States within 270 days, or cease distribution of TikTok’s hugely popular smartphone apps in the United States.

Now it’s a question of finding someone with the will and the cash to acquire TikTok. McCourt said he’s working with Guggenheim Securities and the law firm Kirkland & Ellis to put together a group of investors who can swing the deal.

McCourt’s plan has won the support of Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, who’s been working for years on a data privacy protocol called Solid. McCourt is also backed by Deb Schmill, founder of the Becca Schmill Foundation, a Needham nonprofit that combats the online exploitation of children, and psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose recent book “The Anxious Generation” argues that today’s social media services are harmful to children and teens.

Still, building an alternative system from scratch, and taking on the entrenched giants of social media, doesn’t seem very practical. But scooping up TikTok and its 170 million users could give Project Liberty the critical mass it needs to build a more privacy-friendly online ecosystem.

McCourt built his fortune on a foundation of Boston real estate development deals, like the Union Wharf condos on Boston Harbor. In 2001, McCourt made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Boston Red Sox. (Boston Globe owner John Henry and his partner Tom Werner would acquire the team the following year.)

McCourt instead acquired the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2004 and relocated to the West Coast. His eight-year tenure with the team was marred by allegations of financial mismanagement, even as McCourt was entangled in an ugly divorce. The team filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011, yet McCourt was able to sell the Dodgers for $2 billion in 2012.

Throughout the crisis, McCourt was battered with hateful comments on Facebook, an experience that convinced him that social media companies had become too powerful. In 2021, he launched Project Liberty in a bid to redress the balance by creating new technology for handling personal data. It’s a hybrid organization — partly a nonprofit think tank with input from Georgetown University, Stanford University, and the French university Sciences Po, and partly a for-profit effort to build out privacy-protecting technologies for social media.

The heart of Project Liberty is what it calls the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol, or DSNP. It’s a set of standards for handling social media data, similar to the standards for email or web pages, and vastly different from the status quo. Social networks based on DSNP would not control the personal data of their users. Instead, users could decide how much or how little of their information to share. The social network would retain none of the data without a user’s explicit permission.

In such a system, users could easily switch from one social network to another without having to rebuild all their network relationships. If existing social media companies worked this way, you could switch from Elon Musk’s X to Mark Zuckerberg’s alternative service Threads whenever you liked, and bring all your followers with you, instead of having to build a separate roster for each service.

Project Liberty adviser David Clark, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, said DSNP could also let users fine-tune their social media services. For example, such a version of TikTok might let users choose from multiple video recommendation algorithms. An adult might see an edgier selection of videos, while providing a tamer version for her children. “It’s giving you more control over the quality of your experience,” Clark said.

But building a DSNP-based network appears nearly impossible. Facebook, X, and Google won’t dismantle their business models. And despite grumbles about lost privacy and fake news, users keep coming back for more. Alternative social networks have repeatedly fizzled out and so far, only MeWe, a social network with about 20 million subscribers, has committed to DSNP.

A sale of TikTok could be a game-changer, if McCourt and the investors he’s assembling can pull it off. There are still many uncertainties. TikTok has filed suit against the law that would force it to sell, saying it violates the First Amendment rights of its users. Some civil libertarians think this suit has a good chance of success.

But even if TikTok loses, the Chinese government has said that any buyer of the company will not be permitted to include TikTok’s powerful video recommendation software as part of the deal. The software is essential to TikTok’s vast popularity, and many potential bidders might not want the company without it.

McCourt’s whole plan is to transform the way TikTok works. “We don’t want the algorithm,” he said, “and that makes us a very interesting potential buyer.” Since TikTok would be worth far less without its algorithm, the McCourt consortium might pick it up on the cheap.

Even then, it’s an open question whether TikTok’s users would stick around as its new owners implement the new protocol. People often talk a good game about privacy but care far more about entertaining content and ease of use. Unless the new TikTok is at least as much fun as today’s version, there’s liable to be a great migration to copycat services like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

But McCourt is confident that social media users are getting fed up with intrusive ads and offensive content. A new version of TikTok based on a privacy-friendly protocol might be exactly what these users are waiting for.

“We’re seeing more and more people getting ready to leave,” McCourt said. “There has to be a place for them to go.”