TikTok will officially remain in the U.S. for the foreseeable future. A new, majority U.S.-owned company had been established to continue running the popular video-sharing app in the country, and has announced some very U.S.-centric changes coming to your For You feed.
Why pro-Palestinian content is at the center of the TikTok ban
U.S. politicians pushed for TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell to American owners for years. These lawmakers claim that the Chinese government spies on American users via the app (though there is no evidence that this is actually happening), and accuse TikTok of manipulating its algorithm to present content that is sympathetic to Palestine and China.
Now it seems these politicians have gotten their way. Called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, the new company will take over ownership of TikTok in the U.S., as well as the American operations of other ByteDance apps such as CapCut and Lemon8.
“TikTok USDS Joint Venture’s mandate is to secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,” read TikTok USDS Joint Venture’s announcement.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is owned by a plethora of different investors, most of which are American. While TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance retains 19.9 percent of the U.S. joint venture, 45 percent is evenly split among three managing investors: U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake, U.S. IT company Oracle, and UAE investment firm MGX.
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A string of predominantly American investors own smaller chunks of the remaining 35.1 percent, including investment firm Dell Family Office and Susquehanna International Group affiliate Vastmere Strategic Investments.
How TikTok’s new U.S. owners will impact your For You feed
TikTok USDS Joint Venture stated that U.S. user data will be held in Oracle’s U.S. cloud servers, indicating that this will ensure it is secure. TikTok previously did the same, investing $1.5 billion to quarantine U.S. users’ data with Oracle in an initiative dubbed Project Texas. Even so, this wasn’t enough to reassure U.S. lawmakers and stave off the sale.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture will also use U.S. user data to retrain and update the app’s famous content recommendation algorithm, also keeping this new version in Oracle’s cloud. Other countries will presumably continue to use the TikTok algorithm without these U.S.-centric updates.
It seems fair to assume that this retraining may attempt to address politicians’ aforementioned concerns regarding the type and tenor of content that people in the U.S. see on TikTok. The company further noted that it will “safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem” by taking control of TikTok’s U.S. content moderation and trust and safety policies.
Fortunately, these changes don’t mean that TikTok users in the U.S. will be completely cut off from the rest of the world. TikTok USDS Joint Venture states that content from U.S. creators will still be shown to users in other countries. However, it remained silent on whether U.S. creators could similarly continue to see content from the rest of the world.
As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if U.S. users saw fewer pro-Palestinian TikToks on their For You feeds in the future.
TikTok U.S.’ new owner is led by CEO Adam Presser and CSO Will Farrell (not to be confused with actor Will Ferrell), both of whom previously worked at TikTok. The company will also have a seven-member, majority-American board of directors, including TPG Global senior advisor Timothy Dattels, Susquehanna International Group managing director Mark Dooley, Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban, Oracle executive vice president Kenneth Glueck, and MGX chief strategy and safety officer David Scott. Famously Singaporean TikTok CEO Shou Chew will also serve as a director at TikTok USDS Joint Venture.
