TikTok’s Fate May Be Decided This Week After Years of Threats and Bans
After years of political wrangling, lawsuits, looming bans and uncertainty for millions, The long dramatic saga of TikTok could finally conclude this week.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to “conclude” a long-negotiated deal on Thursday, allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States under new ownership terms.
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“The details are worked out,” Bessent said, saying his goal in the negotiations was “to get the Chinese to agree to approve the transaction” and that it had been “successfully completed.”
Of course, Thursday could come and go without a TikTok deal finalized. Dates and deadlines were flexible throughout the process. Trump has set numerous deadlines for changes involving TikTok and pushed back those dates several times. TikTok was briefly taken offline in January, hours before a planned ban, but returned the next day.
Read also: TikTok Introduces Parental Controls, Fact-Checking, and AI Moderation Features
The controversial history of TikTok in the United States
TikTok’s political roller coaster began in 2020, when Washington first raised the alarm over the app’s Chinese ownership and potential data vulnerabilities. Congress passed a 2024 law requiring ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, to divest its U.S. operations or face a total ban.
Since then, the video-sharing site has faced numerous executive orders, legal challenges and failed acquisition attempts.
Time to reach a deal is running out. The United States Supreme Court confirmed the surrender order earlier this yearrejecting arguments that a ban would violate free speech. The move pushed both sides back to the negotiating table, but there have been numerous delays and shifts in the TikTok deal deadline over the past few months.
Asset sign a September 25 executive order authorizing the new ownership to be based in the United States and comprised of a majority of American investors and stakeholders.
The primordial algorithm
The White House confirmed in September that TikTok’s algorithm would be operated in the United States and overseen by American technology company Oracle. Private equity firm Silver Lake and Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, will also be among the investors.
In September, Trump said that News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch would also be part of the ownership group, but CNN later reported that the Murdochs’ media company, Fox Corp, would be the investor, not the two Murdochs individually.
TikTok’s algorithm is a major part of the deal. The algorithm recommends content to you while you scroll on TikTok. The algorithm is controversial due to U.S. concerns that ByteDance, the original Chinese owner of TikTok, could be forced by the Chinese government to use these recommendations in overtly political ways, directed against the United States.
Under the new TikTok deal, the algorithm will be retrained on US user data.
What this means for TikTok users
For TikTok users in the United States, the deal could preserve access to an app that has become a cultural mainstay here, eliminating the looming threat of a shutdown or closure. derived application.
Under the new deal, TikTok’s U.S. user data will remain stored nationally and managed by a dedicated oversight board, which could appease those concerned about data privacy.
Trump and Xi will meet again in Korea on Thursday, meaning a TikTok deal could be announced by the end of this week. However, implementing the deal and changing ownership will likely take months.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is a personal friend of Trump, and some users fear his role within TikTok could mean the algorithm pushes right-wing political content to users. A recent NPR article reported that analysts believe this could happen, but that they will also have to refrain from alienating existing audiences.
