TikTok National-Security Deal Faces More Delays as Worry Grows Over Risks
Officials and executives had hoped for year-end deal to address national-security concerns over social-media platform
WASHINGTON—A potential deal between the Biden administration and TikTok—once expected around year-end—has run into more delays, according to people familiar with the situation, as worry grows over national-security concerns that U.S. officials say the popular app poses.
The review has dragged on amid a range of concerns, including how TikTok might share information related to the algorithm it uses to determine what videos to show users, and the level of trust Washington would need to place in the company, these people said. U.S. officials haven’t returned to TikTok with additional demands to address the recent concerns, some of the people said, leaving the path forward unclear.
A TikTok spokeswoman said the company is looking forward to a “timely conclusion to our agreement with the U.S. government, much of which we have already started implementing in earnest, so that we can put these concerns to rest.” She said the government hasn’t shared any remaining, unmet concerns with the company.
The delay is raising political risks for TikTok and its owner, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., as both Biden administration officials and newly-empowered congressional Republicans amp up their rhetoric on the company. ByteDance has spent around $9 million lobbying in Washington over the past two years, according to disclosure reports.
The company had previously reached a tentative deal with the U.S. government this summer, but senior U.S. officials, including at the Justice Department, don’t believe that proposed agreement is adequate, according to people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. side of the negotiations is being led by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a secretive government panel that reviews business deals for security concerns. The talks have been aimed at reducing Chinese government influence on the U.S. operation, without completely severing TikTok’s Chinese ties, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Both sides had broadly agreed that TikTok’s data on U.S. users will be stored on Oracle Corp. servers in the U.S., people familiar with the deal said. TikTok has said it expects to delete U.S. users’ private data from its own data centers in Virginia and Singapore as it pivots to fully store data with Oracle cloud infrastructure.
It has also said that access to U.S. data by anyone outside of a newly set-up division that governs U.S. data security would be limited by and subject to its protocols, monitored and overseen by Oracle.
TikTok’s defenders say the agreement would give the U.S. government control of and access to much more information about TikTok than they have with any U.S. social-media company.
But some administration officials have sought to make any TikTok security agreement tougher in some respects in response to what they say are growing concerns over TikTok’s access to consumer data and its potential use for influence operations, according to the people familiar with the matter. Republicans, meanwhile, have begun pushing to ban the app altogether.
TikTok says it doesn’t collect search and browsing history outside the TikTok app, according to the spokeswoman. The company does collect information within the app so it functions correctly, she said, like returning relevant search results and ensuring a user isn’t served up the same videos repeatedly.