After a legislative ban, a trip to the Supreme Court, and repeated deadline extensions, TikTok recently made a deal to spin out an American version that will operate in the United States.
Northeastern experts say the deal is not exactly a game-changer.
“Honestly, I’m not sure this means anything,” said Christo Wilson, professor and associate dean of undergraduate programs at Northeastern’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences.
Meryl Alper, associate professor in communication studies at Northeastern, said the idea of there being an isolated, uniquely American TikTok is, essentially, fantasy.
“TikTok is a global company — users travel, they consume content from other places around the world, they talk about that content,” Alper said. “So, the idea of there being some bubble in the U.S. around TikTok is not possible.”
President Joe Biden signed legislation in April 2024, calling for Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States. The Supreme Court upheld the law after a challenge from TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance.
The deadline for the ban was extended several times and, in September, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would allow a “qualified divestiture” of the social media company so that it would be majority-owned by Americans.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC announced in late January that it had formed in compliance with the executive order and would continue operating TikTok in the United States.
Experts say the deal was made in response to two main concerns: that Americans’ data was being collected and sent to China; and that TikTok’s algorithm was manipulated to promote Chinese interests and suppress positive information about the United States.
The deal solves these issues, according to the new owners, who include representatives of American tech companies like Oracle and DXC Technologies and private equity and investment firms.
Experts were not so sure.
Wilson noted that Oracle has pledged it will store user data in the United States. But he said it’s more important to know details about the cybersecurity of the data — for instance, what it’s being used for and who can see it — rather than where it’s being stored.
“We don’t know what those controls are,” Wilson said.
He voiced similar skepticism toward the joint venture’s plan to “retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S.-user data” to combat algorithm manipulation that is allegedly harmful to American interests.
“We don’t know really anything about how that algorithm is trained or how it’s being assessed — we have to entirely put our faith in Oracle that they’re going to do these really rigorous assessments and that they are assessing to the right criteria,” Wilson said. “It’s a lot of faith to put into that organization.”
Alper concurred.
“Training on U.S. data doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s free of influence from those who are deciding which data and what that U.S.-sourced data even means for the content itself or the personalization it will offer,” Alper said.
Moreover, while the new joint ventures may own 80.1% of TikTok, ByteDance remains in the picture, controlling 19.9% of the company.
That 20% is also the most important part, Wilson said, as ByteDance still holds TikTok’s “proprietary black box” — its algorithm.
“No one really knows how the algorithm works,” Wilson said. “That is as true today as it was when this all started.”
But even if TikTok’s owners really wanted to change and be exclusive to the United States, Alper noted that it ultimately wasn’t in their best interest.
“The bottom line is that it’s still a company and there’s profits to be made,” Alper said. “I don’t think anybody who’s now involved in trying to make money off of TikTok wants to drive users away.”
Written by Cyrus Moulton/Northeastern University.
