One of the unexplored questions about Microsoft’s interest in TikTok is why it wants to do a deal that would plunge  the company into one of the most controversial political debates of the past few years: how to deal with hate speech and other contentious content. 

This is a briar patch Microsoft has mercifully avoided up until now. One former Microsoft ad product manager, Dare Obasanjo, captured the issue in a tweet Thursday: “Still scratching my head on the Microsoft acquisition here. Other MSFT consumer services like Skype/XBox Live/Minecraft do not have the ability for hate speech to be broadcasted and observed by the media at scale. This is breaking the brand into jail.”