TikTok will remain legal in the US for the foreseeable future. A new, mostly US-owned company is set to continue operating the country’s popular video-sharing app, and has announced more US-focused changes coming to your feed.
Why pro-Palestinian content is at the center of the TikTok ban
American politicians have pushed for TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell to American owners for years. These lawmakers claim that the Chinese government is spying on American users of the app (although there is no evidence that this is actually happening), and they accuse TikTok of manipulating its algorithm to present content sympathetic to Palestine and China.
Now it seems that those politicians have got their way. Called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, the new company will take ownership of TikTok in the US, as well as the American operations of other ByteDance apps such as CapCut and Lemon8.
“TikTok USDS Joint Venture’s mandate is to protect US user data, applications and algorithms through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,” read the TikTok USDS Joint Venture announcement.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is owned by a number of different investors, most of whom are American. While TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance retains 19.9 percent of the US joint venture, 45 percent is split equally between the three leading investors: American private equity firm Silver Lake, US IT firm Oracle, and UAE investment firm MGX.
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A string of mostly American investors hold small pieces of the remaining 35.1 percent, including investment firm Dell Family Office and Susquehanna International Group’s subsidiary Vastmere Strategic Investments.
How the new owners of TikTok America will affect your For You feed
The TikTok USDS Joint Venture said that the data of US users will be held on Oracle cloud servers in the US, indicating that this will ensure that it is secure. TikTok previously did the same, investing $1.5 billion to share US user data with Oracle in a program called Project Texas. However, this was not enough to convince US lawmakers and avoid sales.
The TikTok USDS Joint Venture will also use US user data to retrain and update the app’s popular content recommendation algorithm, and store this new version in the Oracle cloud. Other countries will continue to use the TikTok algorithm without these US-centric updates.
It seems fair to assume that this retraining may try to address the concerns of politicians mentioned above about the type and content of the content US people see on TikTok. The company also noted that it will “protect the US content ecosystem” by regulating TikTok’s US content moderation and trust and security policies.
Fortunately, these changes do not mean that TikTok users in the US will be completely cut off from the rest of the world. TikTok USDS Joint Venture says content from US creators will still be shown to users in other countries. However, it remains to be seen whether American creators can continue to see content from around the world.
So, it won’t be surprising if US users see a few more pro-Palestinian TikToks in their For You feed in the future.
The new owner of TikTok US is led by CEO Adam Presser and CSO Will Farrell (not to be confused with actor Will Ferrell), both of whom have worked at TikTok. The company will also have a seven-member, multi-American board of directors, including TPG Global senior counsel Timothy Dattels, Susquehanna International Group managing director Mark Dooley, Silver Lake partner Egon Durban, Oracle vice president Kenneth Glueck, and MGX chief strategy and security officer David Scott. TikTok’s Singapore CEO Shou Chew will also serve as a director at the TikTok USDS Joint Venture.
