If you opened TikTok recently, you probably saw some weird stuff happening. Maybe you couldn’t post a new video. Maybe the app asked for your precise location. Maybe you weren’t seeing as much stuff about ICE or the Trump administration’s latest assault on the global world order. If the latter is the case, you weren’t the only one.
When it comes to TikTok, the past week has been full of changes, challenges, and conspiracy theories. It was the first week of operations for the new company that’s running TikTok in the United States: the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a name that really rolls off the tongue. I like to call it TikTok USA so that it doesn’t sound so much like a military operation, but some are simply referring to the new company as TikTok’s MAGA makeover.
There are some reasons to suspect this. Many of the new company’s investors, including Oracle and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX, have close ties to the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has even taken credit for “saving TikTok” by brokering the deal that avoided the app from being banned in the US over national security concerns. And in the past few days, users reported odd activity that seems very much in line with Trump’s agenda: direct messages mentioning Epstein won’t send, videos critical of ICE won’t upload, anti-Trump TikToks are getting suppressed. Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said on Tuesday that “a temporary weather-related power outage” impacted TikTok and led to “technical issues.”
What’s probably more significant than an outage and related glitches, however, is how the TikTok USA experience will be different from the classic TikTok experience. Even before the censorship complaints began, the company rolled out an updated privacy policy that collects even more data on its users. That includes their precise location, details of users’ AI interactions, and personal information that it will share with a broader ad network. There is also language in the new privacy policy that TikTok USA could collect data about “immigration status,” but that language was actually in the old privacy policy in order to comply with some state laws.
Then there’s the question of the algorithm. TikTok is what it is because its powerful algorithm consistently delights and surprises hundreds of millions of users with content that’s either uncannily specific or just plain compelling. When the Trump administration announced the terms of the deal to spin off TikTok USA last year, there were a lot of questions about who would own the algorithm for the American app and who would control it. The same goes for content moderation as well as trust and safety policies.
We now know that TikTok USA will control all of these levers. ByteDance, which retains a 19.9 percent stake in TikTok USA, will license the content recommendation algorithm to the new American company, which will host the algorithm as well as all US user data on Oracle servers. Oracle, MGX, and the private equity firm Silver Lake represent the new company’s three managing investors, and they each get a seat on the board. Other investors include firms linked to everyone from Michael Dell to former AOL chair Steve Case to early Facebook investor Yuri Milner. Adam Presser, TikTok’s former head of operations and trust and safety, is the new company’s CEO. Presser was also previously chief of staff to TikTok CEO Shou Chew, who is also on the board of TikTok USA.
We don’t yet know what the leadership of this new company will do. It’s not at all clear that this group of men running the company — yes, the board is all men — is actually a cabal of pro-Trump operatives eager to turn the platform into MAGA’s new mouthpiece.
Some have stronger Trump ties than others. Kenneth Glueck, an Oracle lobbyist and one of Larry Ellison’s lieutenants, played a key role in finalizing the Trump-backed deal and served on the transition team for Trump’s first administration after donating money to it. Jeff Yass, founder of Susquehanna International Group, which owns 15 percent of ByteDance, is possibly the guy who talked Trump into getting a TikTok deal a couple years ago, but he’s not on the board. Susquehanna managing director Mark Dooley is. Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban also helped broker the TikTok deal, and he worked closely with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to get Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in on a deal to acquire Electronic Arts. (Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is apparently a big gamer.)
Does knowing all of this make you want to delete your TikTok account? Apparently a lot of people already are. Daily uninstalls grew by 130 percent in the first four days of TikTok USA’s ownership compared to the previous 30 days. Smaller social media platforms would be happy to have you. UpScrolled, an app that’s been billing itself as a TikTok alternative, is currently second only to ChatGPT in Apple’s App Store.
It’s unclear if the “glitches” from earlier this week will persist or if the algorithm will suddenly start serving more MAGA-adjacent content, pushing more crypto schemes, or just show you more AI slop. This kind of thing has happened before when social media platforms changed hands.
What seems like the most obvious explanation for what’s happening at TikTok USA is that the formerly China-owned platform is becoming an American one. The updates to its privacy policy more or less mirror what companies like Meta and Google have been doing to their American users for years: collecting as much data and making as much money as possible. TikTok USA’s board has some probably pro-Trump guys on it, but Silicon Valley is full of them these days. Look no further than billionaire’s row at Trump’s second inauguration for evidence that the tech industry cares most about access to power.
If all this bothers you, delete the app. Heck, even if it doesn’t bother you, consider spending your attention elsewhere. TikTok was never very good for you.
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