How finalized TikTok deal with White House will impact future of app
After over a year of speculation, TikTok's future in the United States has been officially revealed, with the White House cementing a deal that sees the popular short-form video app transitioned to new American ownership.
One of the very first things that US President Donald Trump did after returning to the Oval Office is reverse the impending ban placed on TikTok by the Biden administration.
The app was briefly disabled after Chinese owner ByteDance failed to abide by a government order to sell the app amid security concerns, yet that only lasted around 24 hours before it was back online with Trump's blessing.
He swiftly announced an extension to the requirement of a sale, and several months afterwards it was officially announced that TikTok would be sold to a number of American investors, including Larry Ellison's Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX.
Advert
As reported by the Independent, that sale has now officially gone through with pressure from the United States government relieved for the first time in around six years, leaving many to wonder how this affects the social media platform going forward.
First and foremost, the immediate consequence of this sale is that TikTok now officially avoids a ban, albeit that possibility has remained incredibly slim for a number of months now.
While ByteDance still retains a minority stake of the app's American business, totalling roughly 19.9%, the new ownership collated under an entity known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC controls both how data is processed, and how the algorithm works for American users.
All TikTok data from American users will now be stored and managed within the US – presumably using Oracle's cloud storage systems – and the same is true for the algorithm which will be retrained by the new ownership.
The latter change has emerged as a concern for some, especially as the Ellison family continues to extend its control over the many of the country's biggest media and news companies, as algorithmic changes could determine what people view from a political perspective — especially concerning divisive topics.
From a broader perspective the app is now entirely free of any potential interference and influence of a foreign nation for the American user base, yet for some having that be handed to the growing power of billionaires proposes somewhat of a catch 22.
The app itself will remain exactly the same from a usability perspective though so there's nothing to worry about in that regard. You don't need to download anything new, nothing will change about the user experience (at least, that we know of right now), and your feed will largely be determined by your preferences.