ReportWire

Tag: ByteDance Ltd.

  • TikTok secures its future in the U.S. with agreement for new joint venture

    TikTok has finalized a deal with Oracle and two other investors that will allow the popular social video platform to continue its business in the U.S.

    The deal, expected to close on Jan. 22, will be 50% held by a new investor consortium that includes tech giant Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX, a technology fund in the United Arab Emirates, with each holding 15%. TikTok parent ByteDance will own 19.9% of the U.S.-based joint venture, while affiliates of existing ByteDance investors will hold 30.1%, TikTok said in a memo to employees.

    “With these agreements in place, our focus must stay where it’s always been — firmly on delivering for our users, creators, businesses and the global TikTok community,” TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew wrote in his memo.

    The deal removes a shadow that was cast over the future of TikTok, which has become one of the world’s most dominant social media platforms and has a large presence in Culver City.

    The company’s business in the U.S. had been uncertain for many years amid security concerns among legislators about ByteDance’s ties to China. ByteDance had been under pressure to divest its ownership in the app’s U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban after Congress passed a law that went into effect in January.

    President Trump — who years ago led the push to ban TikTok from the U.S. — has allowed TikTok to keep operating in the country and in September signed an executive order outlining the new joint venture.

    The venture, which would oversee U.S. data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurance, would be governed by a seven-member board that is majority American, Chew said in his memo. Oracle will be the security partner responsible for “auditing and validating compliance with the agreed upon National Security Terms,” Chew wrote.

    Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and his family also are leading an effort to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

    Oracle did not return a request for comment.

    Shares in the Texas-based cloud provider jumped on Friday following a period of investor unease over the AI market. Oracle’s share price closed Friday at $191.97, up 7%.

    Silver Lake declined to comment. The White House on Thursday referred questions about the deal back to TikTok. In September, Trump said that Chinese President Xi Jinping had approved the deal.

    “These safeguards would protect the American people from the misuse of their data and the influence of a foreign adversary, while also allowing the millions of American viewers, creators, and businesses that rely on the TikTok application to continue using it,” Trump stated in his executive order.

    The announcement will also come as a relief to creators and businesses that rely on TikTok to entertain and reach fans and customers.

    “I hope it just stays true to the platform and the independence we get from it,” said Yasmine Sahid, who posts comedy videos on TikTok and has 2.4 million followers. “I hope we’re still able to monetize our videos the same way, because without that, I think a lot of people would leave or feel uninspired.”

    Many TikTok creators are based in Southern California, close to TikTok’s office in Culver City. Over the years when TikTok’s future appeared uncertain, some of those creators diversified, posting their content to other platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.

    “It’s a smart way to avoid ownership and data issues,” Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research, said of the deal.

    If finalized, the deal would remove a persistent issue in Beijing-Washington relations and signal progress in broader talks. But it would also deprive China’s most valuable private company of total control of an American social media phenomenon.

    ByteDance’s coveted algorithms are considered central to TikTok’s business. Under the deal proposed by Washington, ByteDance will license its artificial intelligence recommendation technology to a newly created U.S. TikTok entity, which will use the algorithm to retrain a new system that is secured by Oracle, according to Bloomberg. The algorithm will be retrained on U.S. user data by the U.S. joint venture, according to TikTok.

    Some industry observers questioned whether the deal addresses the larger concerns surrounding TikTok in the law Congress passed.

    “While these executive orders positively have allowed the platform to operate and maintain the venue for speech, they do not resolve the underlying concerns about the law, which could be applied to other platforms in the future and raise questions about executive power,” Jennifer Huddleston,
    a senior fellow in tech policy at Cato Institute, said in a statement.

    “Just because TikTok remains available under such orders does not mean that the policy concerns about the underlying law have been resolved,” she wrote.

    Bloomberg contributed to this report.

    Wendy Lee, Katerina Portela

    Source link

  • China says it will work with US to resolve issues related to TikTok

    President Donald Trump’s meeting Thursday with China’s top leader Xi Jinping produced a raft of decisions to help dial back trade tensions, but no agreement on TikTok’s ownership.

    “China will work with the U.S. to properly resolve issues related to TikTok,” China’s Commerce Ministry said after the meeting.

    It gave no details on any progress toward ending uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the U.S.

    The Trump administration had been signaling that it may have finally reached a deal with Beijing to keep TikTok running in the U.S.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the two leaders will “consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.”

    Wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner to replace China’s ByteDance. The platform went dark briefly on a January deadline but on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.

    Three more executive orders followed, as Trump, without a clear legal basis, extended deadlines for a TikTok deal. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership. That fell apart when China backed out after Trump announced sharply higher tariffs on Chinese products. Deadlines in June and September passed, with Trump saying he would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns.

    Trump’s order was meant to enable an American-led group of investors to buy the app from China’s ByteDance, though the deal also requires China’s approval.

    Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.


    Follow on

    However, TikTok deal is “not really a big thing for Xi Jinping,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program, during a media briefing Tuesday. “(China is) happy to let (Trump) declare that they have finally kept a deal. Whether or not that deal will protect the data of Americans is a big question going forward.”

    “A big question mark for the United States, of course, is whether this is consistent with U.S. law since there was a law passed by Congress,” Glaser said.

    About 43% of U.S. adults under the age of 30 say they regularly get news from TikTok, higher than any other social media app, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center report published in September.

    A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

    Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

    The security debate centers on the TikTok recommendation algorithm — which has steered millions of users into an endless stream of video shorts. China has said the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But a U.S. regulation that Congress passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok would require the platform to cut ties with ByteDance.

    American officials have warned the algorithm — a complex system of rules and calculations that platforms use to deliver personalized content — is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, but no evidence has been presented by U.S. officials proving that China has attempted to do so.

    ___

    Associated Press Writer Fu Ting contributed to this story from Washington.

    Source link

  • Justice Department says TikTok collected US user views on issues like abortion and gun control

    Justice Department says TikTok collected US user views on issues like abortion and gun control

    WASHINGTON (AP) — In a fresh broadside against one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department is accusing TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion.

    Government lawyers wrote in documents filed late Friday to the federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China.

    TikTok employees used Lark to send sensitive data about U.S. users, information that has wound up being stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said.

    One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to gather information on users’ content or expressions, including views on sensitive topics, such as abortion or religion. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported TikTok had tracked users who watched LGBTQ content through a dashboard the company said it had since deleted.

    The new court documents represent the government’s first major defense in a consequential legal battle over the future of the popular social media platform, which is used by more than 170 million Americans. Under a law signed by President Joe Biden in April, the company could face a ban in a few months if it doesn’t break ties with ByteDance.

    The measure was passed with bipartisan support after lawmakers and administration officials expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or sway public opinion towards Beijing’s interests by manipulating the algorithm that populates users’ feeds.

    ”’Intelligence reporting further demonstrates that ByteDance and TikTok Global have taken action in response to (Chinese government) demands to censor content outside of China,” Casey Blackburn, a senior U.S. intelligence official, wrote in a filing that supported the government’s arguments.

    The Justice Department warned, in stark terms, of the potential for what it called “covert content manipulation” by the Chinese government, saying the algorithm could be designed to shape content that users receive.

    “By directing ByteDance or TikTok to covertly manipulate that algorithm, China could for example further its existing malign influence operations and amplify its efforts to undermine trust in our democracy and exacerbate social divisions,” the brief states.

    The concern, the Justice Department said, is more than theoretical, alleging that TikTok and ByteDance employees are known to engage in a practice called “heating” in which certain videos are promoted in order to receive a certain number of views. While this capability enables TikTok to curate popular content and disseminate it more widely, U.S. officials posit it can also be used for nefarious purposes.

    Federal officials are asking the court to allow a classified version of the legal brief, which would not be accessible to the two companies.

    Nothing in the redacted brief “changes the fact that the Constitution is on our side,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a statement.

    “The TikTok ban would silence 170 million Americans’ voices, violating the 1st Amendment,” Haurek said. “As we’ve said before, the government has never put forth proof of its claims, including when Congress passed this unconstitutional law. Today, once again, the government is taking this unprecedented step while hiding behind secret information. We remain confident we will prevail in court.”

    In the redacted version of the court documents, the Justice Department said another tool triggered the suppression of content based on the use of certain words. Certain policies of the tool applied to ByteDance users in China, where the company operates a similar app called Douyin that follows Beijing’s strict censorship rules.

    But Justice Department officials said other policies may have been applied to TikTok users outside of China. TikTok was investigating the existence of these policies and whether they had ever been used in the U.S. in, or around, 2022, officials said.

    The government points to the Lark data transfers to explain why federal officials do not believe that Project Texas, TikTok’s $1.5 billion mitigation plan to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by the tech giant Oracle, is sufficient to guard against national security concerns.

    In its legal challenge against the law, TikTok has heavily leaned on arguments that the potential ban violates the First Amendment because it bars the app from continued speech unless it attracts a new owner through a complex divestment process. It has also argued divestment would change the speech on the platform because it would create a version of TikTok lacking the algorithm that has driven its success.

    In its response, the Justice Department argued TikTok has not raised any valid free speech claims, saying the law addresses national security concerns without targeting protected speech, and argues that China and ByteDance, as foreign entities, aren’t shielded by the First Amendment.

    TikTok has also argued the U.S. law discriminates on viewpoints, citing statements from some lawmakers critical of what they viewed as an anti-Israel tilt on the platform during the war in Gaza.

    Justice Department officials disputes that argument, saying the law at issue reflects their ongoing concern that China could weaponize technology against U.S. national security, a fear they say is made worse by demands that companies under Beijing’s control turn over sensitive data to the government. They say TikTok, under its current operating structure, is required to be responsive to those demands.

    Oral arguments in the case is scheduled for September.

    Source link

  • Public Colleges Across the Country Are Banning TikTok on Their Networks. Here’s What That Means.

    Public Colleges Across the Country Are Banning TikTok on Their Networks. Here’s What That Means.

    Public colleges and universities across the country are barring TikTok from their internet systems as a slew of states ban the popular video app from state-owned devices. In the last two months, more than two dozen states have issued such bans, prompting many public colleges to tell students they’ll have to log out of the campus Wi-Fi if they want to use the app.

    In taking action against TikTok, many governors have cited the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, who in early December told an audience at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor that the app raised national-security concerns. The app’s algorithm could be used to flood the United States with misinformation, Wray said, and its user data could be harvested for espionage. TikTok is owned by ByteDance Ltd., a Chinese technology company.

    Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana, a Republican, sent a letter on January 3 to the Montana Board of Regents asking it to block TikTok’s use on Montana University System networks.

    “The ability of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to spy on Americans using TikTok is well documented,” he wrote. “Using or even downloading TikTok poses a massive security threat.”

    TikTok has been banned from state-owned devices in 27 states and is partly banned in four states, according to a CNN analysis.

    Texas is one of those states. After Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued a directive last month barring TikTok from state-owned devices and networks, the University of Texas at Austin announced this week that TikTok would no longer be accessible through its campus Wi-Fi. “As outlined in the governor’s directive, TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices — including when, where, and how they conduct internet activity — and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” wrote Jeff Neyland, the university’s adviser to the president on technology strategy, in an email.

    The University of North Texas and the University of Texas at Dallas have also blocked access to TikTok on their Wi-Fi networks. In Alabama, Auburn University blocked TikTok through campus networks in December, after Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, banned the app from all state-government networks and devices.

    The colleges are responding to executive action, but limiting access to the app may be in their best interests, said Karen North, a clinical professor of digital social media at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. North said keeping TikTok off campus networks will help colleges protect their servers from data breaches or being hacked.

    “The universities are really thinking long and hard right now about the fact that when people log on to the secure network at a university, and then they have apps on their phones that might penetrate that network, there’s a lot of really sensitive information that exists within that network,” North said.

    Still, colleges have increasingly turned to TikTok to reach prospective students. A study by the Pew Research Center found that 67 percent of teens use TikTok.

    A Tool for Teaching and Recruiting

    That trend has created challenges for colleges seeking to follow their governors’ orders. The University of Central Oklahoma joined the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University in blocking access to TikTok through campus networks in December, following an executive order by Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican.

    In an email to the Central Oklahoma community, the university’s communications team recommended that any existing campus TikTok accounts be deactivated.

    Adrienne Nobles, vice president for communications and public affairs, said the university is exploring ways to continue promoting itself on TikTok, while observing the governor’s executive order.

    “We’ve got a fantastic team of recruiters on the ground, great technology to support our recruitment strategies, and a strong presence on other social-media platforms,” Nobles said via email.

    The Texas A&M University system has also banned TikTok access through its campus networks, even though some of its academic departments have popular accounts. The physics and astronomy department on the College Station campus has over 1.5 million followers on TikTok, where scientists share educational videos of their experiments. The account’s home page now directs viewers to YouTube, where the scientists continue to upload videos.

    Kate Biberdorf, an associate professor of instruction in the University of Texas at Austin’s chemistry department, runs a popular TikTok account, with over 194,000 followers, that shares videos of science experiments.

    Biberdorf, who uses TikTok in teaching and to get people interested in science, said it’s unusual for UT-Austin to limit educational tools on campus.

    “There are a lot of different avenues that TikTok has, and I know it can be silly, and I know it can be goofy, but it can also be used as an educational tool and really help our students see some experiments that I can’t possibly do in the classroom, but I can 100 percent do safely in my home studio,” Biberdorf said.

    She plans to continue making TikTok videos, which she can still film while disconnected from the campus network. But she said the new rule, which she understands the university must obey, could hamper recruitment of students and faculty members.

    “I do know that right now we’re in a culture in our little Austin bubble where, over all, we kind of feel like our rights are being taken away, and this was just another push in the wrong direction,” she said. “So, I think in terms of recruitment, it definitely will have an impact because all of these little things are going to add up and make a big difference.”

    Aynne Kokas, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, said that as TikTok becomes more ingrained in society, it will grow increasingly difficult to regulate the company.

    “The more TikTok becomes embedded in the U.S. information ecosystem, the more difficult it is to take any significant action against the company,” she said, “because then it becomes not just a question of regulating the firm, but also impacting U.S. businesses, U.S. users.”

    Kokas added that she doesn’t think blocking access to TikTok on campus networks will keep students off the app.

    “I would be very surprised,” she said, “if that actually works.”

    Kate Marijolovic

    Source link