It has been roughly four months since ByteDance handed over TikTok’s U.S. operations to a new joint venture, but there is still not much information about what the company is actually doing to follow through with its stated mission to protect user data and prevent unwanted manipulation of its recommendation algorithm.
Now, Sen. Ed Markey is looking for answers.
The Democratic senator sent letters Friday to TikTok USDS, the joint venture overseeing the app’s U.S. business, and Oracle, its “trusted security partner,” calling on both companies to be more transparent about how the deal is being implemented.
“Given the limited information that the Trump administration and TikTok USDS have released, I have serious questions whether the TikTok deal can effectively guard against algorithmic manipulation,” Markey wrote in the letter to TikTok USDS.
Markey asked TikTok USDS in the letter to provide the specific terms of its license agreement with ByteDance, explain how the company plans to review TikTok’s source code, and answer whether ByteDance had 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 with Oracle’s oversight.
“Given Oracle’s seemingly 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 months after TikTok announced in January that the new joint venture would oversee its U.S. business. The venture is overseen by three managing investors who each hold a 15% stake. The managing investors are Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi–based MGX.
The rest of the joint venture is owned by investors, including affiliates of ByteDance investors. ByteDance itself 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 U.S. under new leadership.
In its announcement, TikTok USDS said its mandate was to “secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures.” The company also said the recommendation algorithm would be retrained on U.S. user data and secured on Oracle servers.
But it seems some U.S. lawmakers are still suspicious of TikTok, even under its new leadership.
U.S. politicians have spent years trying to force ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to give up control of the app, supposedly for national security concerns tied to the app’s links to China.
However, some lawmakers have suggested the push to ban TikTok had less to do with national security and more to do with the kind of political content circulating on the platform.
During a forum in May 2024, then-Sen. Mitt Romney linked the broad bipartisan support for a TikTok ban to lawmakers’ disagreement with pro-Palestinian content on the app.
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