TikTok, owned by the Chinese, is reportedly working feverishly to move all the US user data it has to the US and put the US team under control.
ByteDance, the owner of a popular social media app, has launched the Texas Project, which will also end the subordination of American employees to their managers in Beijing.
The U.S. data delivery effort began a year ago and involved thousands of TikTok employees, including restricting access to data from outside the U.S.
According to a BuzzFeed report, this is how ByteDance decided to deal with concerns from US regulators that the Chinese government could use the app to access sensitive information about people living in the US.
In addition to the data transfer, a number of TikTok’s core systems, including those that check how viral a video has become, will be cloned and run from the US for the first time, as will the algorithm behind the For You page. recommendations.
TikTok, owned by the Chinese, is reportedly working feverishly to move all user data from the US to the US and put the US team under control.
TikTok has selected Oracle as its “Trusted Technology Partner” for Project Texas, so all data and systems will be hosted and run in Oracle data centers.
The firm plans to replicate the process in Europe and elsewhere in the world once the US rollout is complete, experts say, allowing for specific regional control over data as well as allowing users to connect with each other internationally.
TikTok has generated controversy since its launch in September 2016 and has quickly become one of the most popular and influential social networks.
During his time in office, the app was heavily criticized by former President Donald Trump, who was often used as a punching bag in his war of words with China.
He threatened to shut down the app in the US, but this never happened, but fears remain and come from regulators and politicians alike.
To try to address these concerns, ByteDance is working to differentiate services in the US from those offered in China, where the Chinese government exercises control.
This is also reportedly part of the Texas Project, pending how much control and influence ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters will have over US operations. After all, it’s still part of ByteDance, just managed independently.
Currently, US staff reports to US middle managers, who then report to ByteDance executives in Beijing. The question is how far they can go by removing Chinese management from the chain of command.
ByteDance, owner of the popular social media app, has launched Project Texas, which will also end American employees reporting to their managers in Beijing.
TIKTOK: A CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA APP SPECIALIZED IN SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
TikTok is a Chinese social media application that allows users to live stream, create short videos, music videos, and GIFs with multiple features.
TikTok’s slogan is “Make every second count.”
It was the most downloaded app in the US in 2018 and the fourth most downloaded app in the world in 2018, ahead of Instagram and Snapchat.
TikTok is known in China as Douyin, where it was launched in 2016 and then became more widely available around the world in 2017.
Douyin is still the version of the app used in China, which can be downloaded separately on TikTok.
It offers users many colorful modification and editing tools, including overlay music, sound, animated stickers, filters, and augmented reality (AR) to create short videos.
The Beijing-based social network has over 500 million active users and is now valued at over $75 billion (£58 billion).
In 2020, Donald Trump called for the sale of the US division of TikTok to a US company over concerns that the Chinese-owned app poses a national security risk.
Talks are underway between ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart over US operations after Trump threatened to ban downloads in the US.
ByteDance appears to be considering legal models that would limit Chinese managers’ access to U.S. data but leave them in the decision-making process, insiders told BuzzFeed.
TikTok said in a statement that it is “committed to protecting the privacy and security of our community.” User data is stored in data centers in the US and Singapore, and we continue to invest in data security as part of our overall work to keep our users and their information safe.”
The firm hasn’t released a statement about how far negotiations have progressed to create a completely separate organization to manage US data, but it’s likely to be an important part of the firm’s work that could spread around the world.
Since its inception, TikTok has faced bans in various countries, blocking by firms and institutions, and threats of investigation into its Chinese properties.
In 2019, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) launched an investigation into whether TikTok poses a national security risk.
That same year, the US Navy and Army banned TikTok from soldiers’ work phones, and in 2020, Trump said he would ban the app unless it was sold to a US firm.
Although it was not sold because a deal with Oracle to buy a US unit fell through last year, the deal with Oracle to manage all data is believed to have gone far enough to allay concerns from regulators and policy makers.
ByteDance has already taken some steps to separate the US data, including separating the teams working on TikTok from those working on Douyin, the Chinese counterpart, and the deal with Oracle takes it one step further.
It also comes as the Joe Biden administration is preparing legislation that will restrict foreign apps from accessing US citizens’ data.
Senator Marsha Blackburn, a supporter of Donald Trump and a vocal critic of China’s intervention, said she would remain concerned as long as “product developers and key decision makers” are based in China.
“TikTok is saying what they think will help them avoid scrutiny by lawmakers, but that won’t happen as long as they remain the hand of the CCP,” she told BuzzFeed.