No More Dancing Around It: The U.S. Needs To Do More To Protect TikTok Users

Oracle and Walmart have partnered to purchase the U.S. business of TikTok from Byte Dance.

The priority doesn’t seem to be the integrity of information for Oracle and Walmart’s purchase of the U.S. business of TikTok. Source: TheBetterDay

In the current social climate, TikTok’s recent status as a political issue doesn’t come as a shock. Last February, TikTok faced allegations that accused the app of “failing to obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting, using, and/or disclosing personal information from children.” This was among other claims in the lawsuit, including refusal to delete this information at the request of parents and failure to notify users this collection of  information had even occurred.

These concerns regarding privacy and regulation, as well as evidence that China has been building a database on Americans’ information, led India to ban the app in July, despite the app having 660 million downloads in the country since 2017. 

As tensions continued to rise, President Trump followed suit with a threat to ban the video-sharing app in the U.S. due to national security concerns that the China-based company ByteDance, the parent company behind TikTok, was harvesting U.S. users’ data. To save the app, Microsoft entered into negotiations as the top contender to purchase U.S. operations of the app. 

However, ByteDance rejected the offer due to Microsoft’s stipulation that they would also own and control the code for TikTok’s algorithms. Any TikTok user knows how specific the algorithm is — whoever controls the code, which is the foundation for TikTok, controls what information the app collects.

During negotiations, Trump signed two executive orders prohibiting U.S. transactions with ByteDance or Tencent, another Chinese company behind WeChat. This is to ensure that the underlying information isn’t controlled by ByteDance, and therefore can’t be influenced by the Chinese government, the Communist Party, or its intelligence agencies that could use Americans’ information against the U.S. 

The most recent executive order was simply not enough. It was easily pushed aside by the offer ByteDance actually accepted, meaning that the priority doesn’t seem to truly be on the integrity of information. 

ByteDance ultimately approved Oracle’s bid, which lacked the control Microsoft sought. It’s still unclear what exactly Oracle and Walmart, its partner in the buyout, will do to ensure the integrity of Americans’ information. According to NBC News, ByteDance will still own 80% of TikTok Global, the new entity being created to manage U.S. operations, somewhat undermining the point of transferring American information in the first place. It begs the question on the purpose of making multibillion-dollar deals, if the end result still leaves the algorithms that TikTok uses to steal information, in ByteDance’s hands.

If approved by the U.S. government, we are essentially back to square one; ByteDance still has control of the algorithms that direct the information, but this time, Oracle and Walmart get some of the revenue. National security concerns will remain, as 100 million active U.S. users are still on Tiktok and open to Chinese influence. More effective action like allowing Oracle and Walmart to have full control over the app’s operations in the U.S. and the code that underlines the app. 

Furthermore, action needs to be taken in order to secure and protect American data. Otherwise, we won’t be setting the necessary precedent on data privacy and integrity. The protection of data is in danger, and we must do something to preserve it — time is ticking.