TikTok has always been the center of controversies when it comes to the United States. The app was one of the targets under Trump’s administration, but this continued with Biden due to the continuous tensions between the US and China. TikTok, as a Chinese application, is the target of suspicions from the US court, Chinese companies don’t have easy days once they try to penetrate into the US. TikTok is a global phenomenon, and it’s hard for the US to deal with it. The app / social media has been under the scrutiny of American lawmakers and users alike. There are concerns that user data was being transmitted and accessed by serves in China. Due to its massive popularity, the discussions around user data management never end. Now, it seems that Oracle is investigating TikTok.
According to a fresh report, Axios learned that Oracle has been conducting an audit of TikTok’s operations. Going into specifics, it seems that Oracle is looking into TikTok’s feed algorithm and content moderation models. The goal is “to ensure they aren’t manipulated by Chinese authorities”.
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Oracle is investigating recent suspicions over TikTok user data management
To recall, TikTok saw a brief ban during the Trump Administration in 2020. The administration required TikTok to divest its US assets to American companies Walmart and Oracle. However, Trump hadn’t much luck in 2020 (pun intended) and a judge blocked the ban. The ban fell and ByteDance’s company reached a partnership with Oracle. The goal was to operate under the US-based company’s massive cloud infrastructure.
Since June, TikTok has been routing U.S. user data through Oracle. However, a recent report indicated that Chinese ByteDance engineers were accessing the private data of American users. Due to the growing suspicions, and all the discussions, Oracle is stepping in. We are curious to see if the company will provide a report soon, or if things will keep going “under the wraps”.
Curiously, TikTok was stealing the headlines recently due to Apple threatening its employees that are somewhat “addicted” to the app. Another curious fact is that the app keeps its successful presence in Russia despite growing restrictions.
