Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
After years of political controversy, lawsuits, looming bans, and uncertainty for millions of people, TikTok’s long-running dramatic saga It may finally end this week.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday are expected to seal a long-negotiated agreement, allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States under new ownership terms, Treasury Secretary Scott Besent said Sunday.
Don’t miss any of our unbiased technical content and lab reviews. Add CNET As Google’s preferred source.
“Details have been settled.” Besant saidStating that his goal in the negotiations was “to get the Chinese to agree to approve the deal” and that it was “successfully completed.”
Of course, Thursday could come and go without the TikTok deal being completed. Dates and deadlines She was flexible all the way. Trump has set multiple deadlines for changes related to TikTok and has violated those deadlines several times. TikTok went down briefly in January, hours before a planned ban, but returned the next day.
Read also: TikTok offers parental control, fact checking, and AI moderation features
TikTok’s controversial history in the United States
TikTok’s political volatility began in 2020, when Washington first raised alarms about the app’s Chinese ownership and potential data vulnerabilities. Congress passed the 2024 Act Which forced ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, to liquidate its US operations or face a complete ban.
Since then, the video-sharing site has faced numerous executive orders, court appeals and failed takeover attempts.
The time to reach an agreement is running out. US Supreme Court It upheld the divestment order earlier this yearrejecting arguments that a ban would violate freedom of expression. This ruling prompted the two parties to return to the negotiating table, but there have been several delays and shifts in the TikTok deal deadline over the past few months.
Trump I fell that Executive order on September 25, allowing the new ownership to be based in the United States and made up of a majority of American investors and stakeholders.
The algorithm is extremely important
The white house It was confirmed in September The TikTok algorithm will be run in the United States and supervised by the American technology company Oracle. Private equity firm Silver Lake and Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, will be among the investors.
In September, Trump said News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch would also be part of the ownership group, but CNN later reported that the Murdoch family’s media company, Fox Corp, would be the investor, rather than the Murdochs individually.
TikTok’s algorithm is a key part of the deal. The algorithm recommends content to you as you scroll on TikTok. The algorithm is controversial because of US concerns that the Chinese government might force ByteDance, TikTok’s original Chinese owner, to use those recommendations in overtly political ways, directed against the United States.
Under TikTok’s new deal, the algorithm He will be retrained on US user data.
What this means for TikTok users
For TikTok users in the US, the deal could preserve access to the app that has become a cultural mainstay here, eliminating the looming threat of a shutdown or… Separate application.
As part of the new arrangement, TikTok user data in the US will still be stored locally and managed by a dedicated oversight board, which may satisfy those with concerns about data privacy.
Trump and Xi will meet again in Korea on Thursday, meaning the 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 He is a personal friend of Trump, and some users fear that his role with TikTok could mean the algorithm is pushing right-wing political content to users. A Recent NPR story Reportedly, analysts say this could happen, but they will also need to refrain from alienating the existing public.