On January 22, TikTok made an important change to avoid being banned in the United States. The company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, agreed to give more control over U.S. data to Oracle Corporation, an American technology company.

This change happened because many U.S. citizens were concerned that TikTok, being owned by a Chinese company, could allow American user data to be accessed by the Chinese government. To avoid the nationwide ban, Oracle will help store and protect American users’ data and watch over updates to the app.

Oracle was founded by Larry Ellison, one of the wealthiest people in the world, and played a large role in technology. Oracle works with many major technology companies, including OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

Many TikTok users are worried about this change. They think that giving control to an American company with strong political connections to Donald Trump, could lead to significant changes on the platform. Users fear TikTok will begin to push certain political ideas, hide certain posts, or censor content. They worry this could limit free speech, which is a natural right.

Personally, this situation makes me feel alarmed about how much control governments and large companies might have over what people see on social media. I use TikTok a lot and I try to stay informed about social and political issues, so I pay attention to the types of posts that appear on my feed. Because I am very proactive about activism and current events, I noticed the change pretty quickly. Recently, it feels like I have been seeing fewer posts about protests against the U.S. administration. I have also noticed fewer videos from activists supporting Palestine, even though I used to see a lot of that content before.

This makes me wonder if changes to the platform or its algorithm might be affecting what information is shown to users. If people believe TikTok is censoring content or controlling information, they might begin to boycott the app. This could also lead to more government control over social media in general.

Many students and young people use TikTok every day, so these decisions could impact how they share ideas and connect with others. This change could affect how other social media platforms will operate in the future and the level of freedom users have online.