One of the very few things to get us through these troubling times is a social media app called Tiktok. It provided us with hours upon hours of endless scrolling, throwing in a couple of jokes here and there, with the audios and the dances forever ingrained into our head.
But recently, Tiktok has come under fire from the Trump Administration. But why would a social media app be under fire from such a prominent figure such as the president? Well, since Tiktok is a Chinese owned company, and with the U.S. relations not being the best with China, many people in Trump's administration are fearful of China gathering private information about American citizens. However, what is leaving many people puzzled, is the fact that Facebook testified in front of Congress regarding issues of selling people's private information to companies to better their own target audience while jeopardizing the privacy of many Americans. Yet, after all of this, Facebook still remains the most used social media site in the world, with 190 million Americans using it almost every day.
But how can we save this app? Well, Tiktok and an American company called Oracle have until November 12th to make a deal, making Tiktok an American company rather than a foreign. Until then, the app will not have any updates and can not be purchased from the app store. The app WeChat will also be rendered useless, leaving 19 million Americans in the dust. Recently, Trump has approved a deal between Tiktok and Oracle, where ByteDance (Tiktok's parent company) would own a majority of Tiktok, but Oracle will be responsible for managing security and personal data. Included in the deal was a $5 billion fund for US Education, but it remains unclear who will be picking up the tab on that. Walmart will also be purchasing stock in Tiktok and the CEO of Walmart will even be a part of the board of directors. Tiktok released a statement saying that combined, Oracle and Walmart would own 20% of the company, contrary to Trump stating that Oracle and Walmart would "totally control" the app.
One of the main concerns people have about this deal is both companies, Walmart and Oracle, are major contributors to the Trump presidential campaign fund. This raises many questions of the app possibly having more censorship against the more liberal accounts on Tiktok, possibly infringing on the first amendment rights. But, there is also the chance that nothing changes with the accounts and censorship on the app. During such an uncertain time, even the fate of one of the most popular apps remains uncertain.
Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/technology/trump-oracle-and-tiktok.html, https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/tech/tiktok-oracle-walmart-explained/index.html
