Now, Senator Ed Markey is looking for answers.
Democratic senators on Friday sent a letter to TikTok USDS, the joint venture that oversees the app’s US business, and its “trusted security partner” Oracle, calling on both companies to be more transparent about how the deal is implemented.
“Given the limited information released by the Trump Administration and TikTok USDS, I have serious questions about whether the TikTok deal can effectively protect against algorithmic manipulation,” Markey said in the letter to TikTok USDS.
In the letter, Markey asked TikTok USDS to provide the specific terms of its license agreement with ByteDance, explain how the company plans to review TikTok’s source code, and respond to whether ByteDance accessed any user-related data.
From Oracle, Markey wants to know the contractual terms of its role in reviewing ByteDance’s source code and how many algorithms the joint venture will retrain under Oracle’s supervision.
“Given Oracle’s central position in implementing national security safeguards, the company has a responsibility to be transparent on the scope, execution, and effectiveness of its obligations,” Markey wrote in a separate letter to Oracle.
TikTok USDS and Oracle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Markey’s letters come just months after TikTok announced in January that the new joint venture would oversee its US business. The venture is overseen by three managing investors, each of whom holds a 15% stake. The managing investors are Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX.
The remaining portion of the joint venture is owned by investors, including affiliates of ByteDance investors. ByteDance still retains a 19.9% stake in the company.
The joint venture was created to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in September, which allowed TikTok to continue operating in the US under new leadership.
In its announcement, the TikTok USDS said its job was to “protect US user data, apps, and algorithms through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures.” The company also said that the recommendation algorithms will be retrained on US user data and secured on Oracle servers.
But it seems some US lawmakers are still skeptical of TikTok, even under its new leadership.
US politicians have spent years trying to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to give up control of the app, believed to be due to national security concerns over the app’s links to China.
However, some lawmakers have suggested that banning TikTok has less to do with national security and more to do with the political content being broadcast on the platform.
During a forum in May 2024, then-Sen. Mitt Romney linked broad bipartisan support for the TikTok ban to lawmakers’ disagreement with pro-Palestinian content on the app.
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