On Thursday, it was announced that a deal had finally been reached regarding the popular video streaming platform TikTok. This social media app has long been a national security concern, as its parent company, ByteDance, is a Chinese corporation.

There were reasonable concerns that TikTok was mining all sorts of data from American users that the Chinese Communist Party now has access to, and its algorithms were being manipulated not only to cause discord and chaos in the United States but to disseminate Chinese communist propaganda.

Several companies banded together to purchase the rights to create an American-only version of the app to the tune of $14 billion. Those companies include Oracle, a tech company; Silver Lake, a private equity fund; and MGX, a United Arab Emirates investment firm. These investors will own 80% of the company, giving them a majority stake. ByteDance would still have a 19.9% stake.

In 2024, Congress passed a law forcing ByteDance to divest from CCP control; otherwise, TikTok would be banned in the U.S. starting in January 2025. The CEO of TikTok fought very hard against the new law, and the company even went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Congress’s favor.

TikTok did go dark for a few days in January 2025 because, at that point, China and ByteDance had not been able to reach an agreement with the U.S. But in President Donald Trump’s second term, he unilaterally delayed the congressional ban multiple times to give China more time to come to a deal.

Those delays, despite being in all likelihood unconstitutional, ultimately culminated in last week’s deal, though it’s still not quite clear if the agreement complies with the terms of the 2024 law.

“In announcing the deal Thursday, TikTok said that the new owners ‘will retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data,’” according to Politico. “Those measures may allay some of the national security risks associated with the algorithm, but it’s unclear if they go far enough to satisfy the 2024 law, which prohibits ‘cooperation’ between ByteDance and the U.S. version of TikTok on operating the algorithm. Previous reports indicated that the U.S. version of TikTok would license the algorithm from ByteDance, which could be another legal stumbling block if the agreement involves continued coordination between the two companies.”

Is ByteDance still able to data mine? The answer, TikTok asserts, is no. “U.S. user data will be protected by USDS Joint Venture in Oracle’s secure U.S. cloud environment,” TikTok claims in the official announcement. “The Joint Venture will operate a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program that is audited and certified by third party cybersecurity experts.” We will have to wait and see just how secure this turns out to be. Knowing China, it will inevitably make sure it still has a back door.

President Trump is celebrating the victory. On Truth Social, he stated:

I am so happy to have helped in saving TikTok! It will now be owned by a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World, and will be an important Voice. Along with other factors, it was responsible for my doing so well with the Youth Vote in the 2024 Presidential Election. I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok. Thank you to Vice President JD Vance, and all of the others within my Administration, who helped bring this Deal to a very dramatic, final, and beautiful conclusion. I would also like to thank President Xi, of China, for working with us and, ultimately, approving the Deal. He could have gone the other way, but didn’t, and is appreciated for his decision.

Regardless of whether the app is no longer a national security threat, its algorithms are still serving people up a lot of terrible content. TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube all curate short-form video content that is addictive and greatly contributes to the mental health crisis among young adults.

While this TikTok deal is perhaps a low-key victory, the overall concern about our young people isn’t lessened. Maybe, as columnist Armstrong Williams suggests, children under the age of 13 shouldn’t be given access at all to social media. Or perhaps we should emulate the Australians just this once and keep youth off social media until they are 16.

Donald Trump loves America enough to attempt to divest TikTok from Chinese spies. Does this administration love America enough to also start putting guardrails in place to protect our children from the predations of social media conglomerates? That seems like the logical next step.