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.
