Tech giant Oracle is set to provide security for a US version of TikTok’s algorithm, the White House said Monday, under a deal for the sale of the Chinese-owned app’s American operations.
The proposal moves TikTok’s US operations into a new joint venture based in the United States, a senior White House official told reporters, adding that the entity would involve a “majority-American board of directors.”
Oracle, in turn, is expected to serve as a security provider.
The agreement provides that a copy of TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm be brought into the US joint venture system, the official said.
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“It’s going to be fully inspected and retrained by the security provider on US user data, and then it’s going to be operated by that US entity,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Washington has forcefully sought to take TikTok’s US operations from the hands of Chinese parent company ByteDance over national security reasons.
Under President Donald Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, Congress passed a law to force ByteDance to sell its US operations or face a ban of the hugely popular platform.
US policymakers, including Trump in his first presidency, have warned that China could use TikTok to mine data from Americans or exert influence on what they see on social media.
On Monday, the US official said the algorithm would be “continuously monitored” to ensure it is “not being unduly influenced.”
The latest updates came after Trump hailed progress Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping on issues including TikTok after both leaders spoke by telephone for the second time since Trump’s return to the presidency.
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Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week, declaring that the terms of the TikTok deal meet US national security needs, the US official said Monday.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News over the weekend that “there will be seven seats on the board that controls the app in the United States, and six of those seats will be Americans.”
Trump separately added that media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his eldest son Lachlan could be among the investors who will take control of TikTok in the United States.
