As she applies her makeup before school, freshman Lily Chen turns on her phone to tune into the morning news to hear something surprising: TikTok has changed owners.
“My initial reaction was this is definitely related to the TikTok ban that happened a few months ago,” Chen said. “I think it is more than just a change in CEO, but it’s more a political thing behind this move.”
On Jan. 22, TikTok’s management changed from the Chinese company ByteDance to U.S. investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX. According to CNBC, “the joint venture — officially the TikTok USDS Joint Venture — was established in compliance with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating the divestiture of TikTok in the U.S. from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.”
According to CBS News, a TikTok official said, “TikTok updated its privacy policy to include clearer language about location information and plans to soon allow U.S. users to share their precise location with TikTok or opt out of that feature.”
However, with the new policy also comes a different handling of sensitive data.
“The company now states that it ‘processes such sensitive personal information in accordance with applicable law,’” according to the same CBS article.
Computer science instructional lead Christopher Bell said users should spend more time thinking about security because it is an important factor in online consumption, especially as social media apps collect increasing amounts of personal data.
“I just think security is really important, and we don’t spend enough time thinking about it,” Bell said. “I don’t know whether these changes will end up being a net positive for us or a net negative, but I think the privacy aspect is something that people should definitely pay attention to and just note because I don’t think we do enough of that with the apps in our phones in general.”
Junior Laila Joshi said she quickly scanned and agreed to the new terms on her TikTok app once the sale went through. However, she said she felt more wary after learning about the new change in ownership from her peers.
“I feel like it’s a little bit scary because it says it’ll be tracking a lot more of what you do — tracking your location and tracking AI usage,” Joshi said. “I saw that, and that got me a little bit scared.”
Freshman Kash Bhat, though, said he doesn’t think people will leave TikTok just because it has new owners, as the app’s popularity and addictive nature will likely keep users scrolling.
“They’re really already so addicted,” Bhat said. “It doesn’t really matter if they can’t see some of the stuff that they want because it’s happened with other apps as well.”
With censorship becoming more prominent since the change, according to PBS, junior Kendall Butler said apps should not conflict with consumer rights.
“I am very concerned about censorship,” Butler said. “I do not think the government should be involved in decisions about social media apps because it just seems like it’s a strain on our freedom of voice or freedom of speech and all other constitutional rights.”
Although some users may see TikTok changes, Chen said most users mindlessly scroll without much thought to their loss of privacy.
“Most of us are just focused on the content that we’re consuming instead of what data is being recorded and taken away,” Chen said. “I feel like transparency is really important after this gained attention, and I think it’s more important that both sides of the country and the government will actually tell the consumer what kind of data they’re trying to take from us, or are usually taking.”
Additionally, freshman Cecilia Cassago said she hopes for privacy to be maintained.
“I hope they cannot take a lot of info because that’s really creepy, especially for an app that’s supposed to be just fun videos and people sharing their daily lives,” Cassago said. “I hope everyone can have their freedom and do whatever you want.”
And Joshi said she hopes any new TikTok policies related to its new owners will not repel users.
“I hope it’s still a good, fun place where everyone can just share their videos and share experiences that they have,” Joshi said. “I hope that not everybody completely stops using it just because of these privacy concerns, so I hope that nothing really bad happens with any of these new changes and that it can just continue being the app that it has been.”
