TikTok's parent company isn't the first Chinese firm to reportedly cancel its IPO plans - but it may get to avoid the public embarrassment Jack Ma faced

• Bytedance was reportedly planning on going public before China told it to focus on its data security risks.
• The TikTok parent company then reportedly paused its listing plans as China continues its Big Tech crackdown.
• The reported move could save Bytedance and its CEO from the tribulations Jack Ma and his Ant Group saw recently.

TikTok's parent company was planning on taking some parts of its business public, the $4 but those efforts ground to a halt after Chinese regulators advised the company to focus on potential data security risks.

A Bytedance representative told Insider that it does not comment on speculation and pointed Insider to $4

That lack of any public stock offering efforts could help save the company from the ire of Chinese officials who currently seem hell-bent on cracking down on Big Tech. At least if Jack Ma's $4

China had only just kicked off a more aggressive affront to Big Tech when Ma's October listing plans were caught in the thicket. It didn't help that Ma $4 at how China regulates the financial sector.

What followed was a very public crackdown of Ma when the government yanked his IPO before it could even take off.

Ma disappeared from the public eye so thoroughly that some outlets reported he could be missing, $4 But an Alibaba executive told CNBC in June that $4

The nation has only tightened its grip on homegrown tech giants since zeroing in on Ma and Ant. It fined Alibaba, which Ma founded, $4 in the online market.

Overall, China seems to be sending a very strong message to tech companies within its borders, a message that Bytedance may have taken seriously.