Democratic senator wants TikTok US JV, Oracle to answer questions on platform safeguards

Democratic senator Ed Markey on Friday asked a TikTok US joint venture and Oracle to answer questions about the ‌security ⁠of ⁠the data from Americans using the short video platform and efforts to prevent foreign manipulation of its content recommendation algorithm.

TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, ⁠in January finalised a ‌deal to establish a majority American-owned ⁠joint venture that will secure US data, to avoid a US ban on the short video app used by over 200 million Americans.

Cloud computing giant ‌Oracle is one of TikTok USDS JV's three ​managing investors. ​In ⁠January, TikTok said The venture will retrain, test and update TikTok's ​content recommendation algorithm on US user data and the algorithm will be secured in Oracle's US cloud.