TikTok deal adds new U.S. owners. Here’s what this means for users.
TikTok will officially remain in the United States for the foreseeable future. A new majority-American company has been created to continue running the popular video-sharing app in the country and has announced some very US-centric changes coming to your For You feed.
Why pro-Palestinian content is at the center of the TikTok ban
American politicians have lobbied for years for TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell to American owners. These lawmakers claim that the Chinese government is spying on American users through the app (although there is no evidence that this is actually happening) and accuse TikTok of manipulating its algorithm to feature content favorable to Palestine and China.
It now appears that these politicians have won their case. Called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, the new company will take over ownership of TikTok in the United States, as well as the U.S. operations of other ByteDance apps such as CapCut and Lemon8.
“The mandate of the TikTok USDS joint venture is to secure U.S. user data, applications and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,” reads the TikTok USDS joint venture announcement.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is owned by a multitude of different investors, most of whom are American. While TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance retains 19.9% of the US joint venture, 45% is split equally among three lead investors: US private equity firm Silver Lake, US IT firm Oracle and UAE investment firm MGX.
Crushable speed of light
A series of mostly American investors own smaller shares of the remaining 35.1 percent, including investment firm Dell Family Office and Susquehanna International Group subsidiary Vastmere Strategic Investments.
How TikTok’s New US Owners Will Impact Your For You Feed
The TikTok USDS joint venture said that US user data will be kept on Oracle’s US cloud servers, saying this will ensure their security. TikTok had already done the same, investing $1.5 billion to quarantine US user data with Oracle in an initiative called Project Texas. However, this was not enough to reassure American lawmakers and prevent the sale.
The TikTok USDS joint venture will also use US user data to retrain and update the app’s popular content recommendation algorithm, also keeping this new version in Oracle’s cloud. Other countries will likely continue to use the TikTok algorithm without these US-centric updates.
It seems fair to assume that this recycling might attempt to address politicians’ aforementioned concerns about the type and tenor of content Americans see on TikTok. The company further said it would “protect the US content ecosystem” by taking control of TikTok’s US content moderation and trust and safety policies.
Fortunately, these changes don’t mean that TikTok users in the United States will be completely cut off from the rest of the world. The TikTok USDS joint venture says content from U.S. creators will still be shown to users in other countries. However, he remained silent on whether American creators would continue to see content from the rest of the world.
As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if American users saw fewer pro-Palestinian TikToks on their For You feeds 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 previously worked at TikTok. The company will also have a seven-member, majority-American board of directors, including Timothy Dattels, senior advisor to TPG Global, Mark Dooley, managing director of Susquehanna International Group, Egon Durban, co-CEO of Silver Lake, Kenneth Glueck, executive vice president of Oracle, and David Scott, chief strategy and security officer of MGX. TikTok’s famous Singaporean CEO Shou Chew will also serve as director of the TikTok USDS joint venture.
