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Rockstar video-sharing platform TikTok has been at odds with the US government for a while. It’s believed that the platform poses a major security risk, and this caused it to be banned from government officials’ phones. Now, it seems that TikTok could divest itself from its parent company ByteDance, according to Bloomberg. This is if a certain deal between TikTok and the US government falls through.
The reason why TikTok is being fingered as a security risk is that it’s a Chinese-owned company. A platform as heavily ad-ridden as TikTok needs to collect data from its users to deliver relevant ads to its users to encourage clicks. The more data it collects, the more accurately it can target its ads.
However, as you can imagine, the US government doesn’t like so much being collected and stored by a Chinese company. TikTok is a huge brand; its app is stored on over a billion devices. Millions of them are from the States. That’s a lot of data being collected from American users.
TikTok could divest from ByteDance
Right now, TikTok is working with the American government to quiet some of its concerns about national security. It’s been working on a project called “Project Texas”.
This is a multi-tier plan that will include having Oracle, an American company, host the data collected from US users. The company will also review TikTok’s software. This deal will also bring a three-person oversight board to keep an eye on the company.
While this plan sounds like it could help reassure us, we’re not sure that it will go through. For starters, certain members of the Justice Department have not accepted TikTok’s approval. That doesn’t bode well for TikTok.
Not only that, but TikTok is still facing an uphill battle with American lawmakers. There are several bills proposed by lawmakers that would actually require the separation of TikTok and ByteDance.
Right now, the future of this deal is still unclear. TikTok still has a long way to go to see that this deal will happen.
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