Trump’s TikTok Deal Is Less About Security, and More About Consolidating Power

Following intense government pressure, TikTok has finalized its deal to sell its U.S. operations to an investor group including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. And after a year of deliberate federal efforts to roll back institutional accountability, weaken regulatory enforcement, and evade the rule of law, the sale of TikTok becomes even more consequential. It is not simply a resolution to a long-running policy debate. It is a signal about how power is being reorganized in the digital public sphere and about how easily democratic principles can be traded away under the guise of pragmatism.

So what exactly is the deal? On paper, the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, developed as part of a “qualified divestiture” established through an executive order, would provide data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for U.S. users. Although TikTok USDS will continue to license the TikTok algorithm from ByteDance, the AI model will be recalibrated specifically using data from U.S. users. This essentially keeps the same look and feel but changes what Americans see, ensuring it is shaped by local engagement rather than global or international inputs. The arrangement includes having the code audited, likely by Oracle and other independent experts, to root out backdoors and malicious content manipulation. In theory, this structure addresses U.S. government concerns about potential Chinese government influence.

But public trust in the new TikTok is questionable at best. Particularly, as the platform’s new terms and conditions show, TikTok is expanding data collection of its users through: 

1. Precise location: Until this update, the app did not collect the precise, GPS-derived location data of U.S. users.
2. AI interactions: Now, users’ interactions with any of TikTok’s AI tools explicitly fall under data that the service may collect and store. This includes prompts and the AI-generated outputs.
3. Expanded ads network: Rather than just using your collected data to target you while using the app, your info is used to serve more relevant ads wherever you go online, including other platforms. 

For years, the debate over TikTok has been framed as a narrow question of national security: who owns the platform, where data is stored, and whether a forced divestment can neutralize risk. But the sale of TikTok reveals something deeper about the rise of authoritarianism in the digital era. 

What’s happening with TikTok in America parallels what journalist Maria Ressa described as happening to the media in the Philippines. Broadcast licenses quietly transferred to administration allies. Media companies were pressured into “pragmatic” compromises that actually aim to stifle speech and dissent. Institutions were hollowed out through business decisions that outlasted the strongman leading the country. And Ressa said: “The damage that is done will not go away without tremendous effort.” That is a warning the United States would be foolish to ignore. The number of changes we are experiencing may lessen under a different political administration, and the headlines around TikTok may pass, but the damage to our civic pillars and institutions will not be quickly undone. 

TikTok’s evolving ownership structure might pay lip service to improving security, but in reality the deal only further consolidates control over our information systems. Changes in data collection and use mean that the platform will now follow the same model used by Google and Meta. Their opaque and weak oversight will not simply revert when political leadership changes or headlines move on, and nor will their transactional approaches to reform.

“The headlines around TikTok may pass, but the damage to our civic pillars and institutions will not be quickly undone.”

Although the right to privacy in the United States is codified via the First and Fourth Amendments, the public’s concern over their data continues to grow. As companies gain more and more unbridled access to our personal information, the relationship between this administration and the new owners of Tiktok enflames those tensions. This begs the question: How long will our First and Fourth Amendment rights remain intact when companies are more beholden to the government than to their users?

The lesson of TikTok is not that one platform is uniquely dangerous. It is that democracies continue to underestimate how powerful people and companies embed themselves in digital systems and how difficult it is to unwind that connection once it does.

So what do we do now in regards to our democracy? Ressa argues for holding the line. She and her compatriots did that for more than six years in the Philippines to slow their democracy’s erosion. But the work to undo the financial structures, rules, and norms that remain and bolster authoritarianism is still in progress.

If we are to hold the line, as countless others around the world have done, then we’re going to have to: 

1. Move out of the purely virtual world and into the physical one. Even under intense pressure and amid Big Tech’s ongoing acquiescence, civil society must continue to build real communities and spaces where fear can be met with solidarity and courage.
2. Step up our demands for real tech laws. Here, the TikTok debate reveals a deeper failure in America’s willingness to privatize power. The U.S. government has been willing to hold hearings, issue bans, and pursue one-off deals, but has not invested in a durable legal and institutional path to govern digital power. And we the people have not done nearly enough to demand more. We accept bans and forced sales because we have not built rules that apply regardless of which company or country is involved. We are normalizing a world where accountability is optional, and power is private. 
3. And lastly, invest in individual agency—the last line of defense. In a digital era of individualized everything, with algorithms driving decisions and our doomscrolling, agency is exercised not just through speech, but through resistance to the trends driven by our social media. That burden to resist should not rest solely on individuals’ digital literacy and capacity. Collectively, we should make greater investments to ensure that all Americans have the skills to navigate social media platforms and AI systems with discernment.

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