A landmark deal to establish a new, American-only app for TikTok has ended years of argy-bargy over the future of the video streaming platform in its biggest market.
Officials in the United States have long worried that the app's Chinese ownership could mean the data of Americans was vulnerable.
US President Donald Trump himself has argued its algorithm might be manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party to influence American users.
So, does the new joint venture deal really address Washington's concerns about national security?
Why has Mr Trump changed his tune on TikTok?
And what are the implications for Australia?
What does the deal entail?
A joint venture was established in a deal between China and the US last week.
Investors, including US cloud computing giant Oracle and equity group Silver Lake, along with Emirati investment firm MGX, own a combined 80.1 per cent of the new entity.
ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of TikTok, retains the largest single stake at 19.9 per cent.
A statement from TikTok said the joint venture would operate under "defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for US users".
Importantly, that means more than 200 million users in the US can continue being on TikTok.
But many American users reported tech issues with the app over the first weekend after the deal.
"We've been working to restore our services following a power outage at a US data centre impacting TikTok and other apps we operate," a statement from the joint venture said.
"You may notice multiple bugs, slower load times, or timed-out requests, including when posting new content."
Some users reported not being able to use the word "Epstein" in direct messages on the app, sparking speculation that discussion of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who had ties to Mr Trump, was being censored on TikTok.
"We don't have rules against sharing the name 'Epstein' in direct messages and are investigating why some users are experiencing issues," TikTok's spokesperson said.
"TikTok USA is broken," is how technology news website The Verge summed it up.
What does deal mean for US national security?
US politicians, both Republican and Democrat, have long argued that Chinese ownership of TikTok presents unacceptable national security risks.
An executive order issued by Mr Trump in 2020 declared that TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users" that could be used by China to access the private information of Americans.
"This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus," he said.
National security concerns over TikTok were valid, said Philip Mai, senior researcher and co-director of Toronto Metropolitan University's Social Media Lab.
"By placing US user data on American infrastructure and giving US investors and directors greater formal control, the deal directly addresses concerns about raw data access and day-to-day governance," he said.
But Dr Mai said the joint venture had not fully resolved those problems.
"ByteDance's continued ownership stake and technical ties mean US officials still worry that influence could occur indirectly, whether through algorithmic design, licensing arrangements, or legal pressure on the parent company," he said.
University of Technology Sydney associate professor Marina Zhang said: "Washington gained control over data and narrative, while China preserved its intellectual property".
"The algorithm stayed in Beijing," she said.
Meanwhile, the influence of TikTok in the United States has only continued to grow — meaning fears around manipulation of the algorithm to influence public opinion remain.
In 2024, when the administration of former president Joe Biden tried to force ByteDance to divest, the app had less than 170 million users in the US.
It now has over 200 million.
What is Trump's view of TikTok?
In 2020, Mr Trump was the first to float the idea of banning TikTok during his first term, which his administration attempted to do unsuccessfully.
The Biden administration in 2024 ordered ByteDance to divest from the platform in the US — or face being shut down.
Yet, on Mr Trump's first day back in office, he signed an executive order to keep TikTok online in America.
"I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Mr Trump said last year.
Mr Trump has more than 16 million followers on TikTok and has attributed his new-found popularity with young voters to the app.
"To all of those young people of TikTok — I saved TikTok," he said in a recent post.
"So you owe me big."
What is more, allies of the Trump White House will benefit from the joint venture deal.
Cloud computing firm Oracle owns 15 per cent of the joint venture and will be responsible for securing the data of American users.
Larry Ellison, Oracle's co-founder and chief technology officer, is a prominent backer of Mr Trump.
California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, accused TikTok of suppressing content critical of Mr Trump after the joint venture deal went through.
"Following TikTok's sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports, and independently confirmed instances, of suppressed content critical of President Trump," Mr Newsom's office said on X, adding the California Department of Justice was launching an investigation.
Criticism has also come from Mr Trump's side of politics.
Jack Burnham, an analyst with the conservative think tank the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, wrote that despite a promise to retrain TikTok's algorithm, "ByteDance will keep control of the app's source code, an arrangement that may allow the firm to manipulate the app's content".
There remained a range of national security concerns for Washington, Mr Burnham argued, including "Beijing's continued capacity to influence the app's content, along with lingering security concerns over the app's data storage practices".
"The firm remains subject to Chinese national security law mandating compliance with Beijing’s intelligence-gathering activities," he added.
What is digital sovereignty?
At the heart of the TikTok debate is the broader issue of digital sovereignty.
Digital sovereignty is where a country has control of its digital infrastructure, data and operations, free from undue external influence.
The World Economic Forum defines it as "the ability to have control over your own digital destiny – the data, hardware and software that you rely on and create".
Ideally, this involves developing homegrown tech industries — especially when there are major concerns about national security.
Dr Mai said the TikTok saga showed "digital sovereignty is increasingly political, not absolute".
"For the US, it exposes the limits of enforcing sovereignty in an open internet: national security concerns collide with free speech norms, market realities, and electoral incentives," he said.
"Once a foreign platform such as TikTok becomes culturally and politically useful, hard measures like bans become difficult to sustain."
University of Sydney senior business lecturer Raffaele Ciriello said algorithms and data were inseparable, and thus the joint venture deal was merely politically convenient.
"You can shake hands with Xi Jinping and say you've done great diplomacy — but it's only scratching the surface," he said.
What should Australia do?
Dr Ciriello argued that digital sovereignty should be the goal for governments, especially in Australia.
"Australia currently has almost no control over its data infrastructure," he said.
Australia's Online Safety Act 2021 and Privacy Act already contain provisions related to data sovereignty.
But Dr Ciriello said the European Union had gone further.
"We'd be better off following Europe's regulatory model, not America's," he said.
"Europe's Digital Services Act offered a more democratic and privacy-focused alternative than US regulations."
Yongqiang Li, a barrister who holds academic positions at Victoria University, said while Australia's online safety act required service providers to comply with Australian privacy and data protection laws, it does not regulate algorithm ownership directly.
"However, there is growing focus on transparency and accountability in algorithms, especially within AI and copyright debates," he said.
Given Australia's strong legal institutions and a "reputation for balanced regulation", UTS's Dr Zhang said the country could provide a model of digital governance for the Asia-Pacific.
