TikTok algorithm under spotlight: Will retraining it swing your feed to the right?
As part of the deal to secure TikTok’s future in America, the app’s algorithm will be copied and retrained using US user data. This might mean that the new owners – all friends with US President Donald Trump – will be able to shape recommendations as they see fit.
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As part of the deal to secure TikTok’s future in America, the app’s algorithm will be copied and retrained using US user data. This might mean that the new owners – all friends with US President Donald Trump – will be able to shape recommendations as they see fit.
White House officials announced last week that under the deal with China, the US operations of TikTok will be controlled by a majority of Americans, and all US user data will be stored on American cloud computing infrastructure run by US software firm Oracle.
ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, had earlier apparently agreed to move an 80% stake of the firm to American owners. Trump – who calls himself America’s ultimate dealmaker – is happy.
However, as Dan Ives, a tech analyst at the financial advisory firm Wedbush Securities, told PBS last year, “buying TikTok without the algorithm would be like buying a Ferrari without the engine.”
That’s why the following line from a White House official is extremely important: “The TikTok algorithm will be secured, retrained, and operated in the United States outside of ByteDance’s control.”
Sure, this way, foreign influence may be removed, and that’s what the China hawks in Congress want. But it’s not unlikely that 170 million American TikTok users might soon begin to see conservative propaganda on their feeds.
Pro-Trump companies in control
The Chinese government will not allow ByteDance to sell the algorithm because, per Chinese law, it is classified as a controlled technology export.
Indeed, TikTok’s For You Page algorithm is the app’s crown jewel. It’s very good at anticipating a user’s content preferences, hooking their attention, and making them scroll through the videos for hours at a time.
The solution – already mentioned in 2024, by the way – is to license the technology and allow US investors to copy and retrain it using US user data.
Analysts are fairly certain that TikTok will change. As the algorithm is trained only on US user data, it will “learn” new patterns because the makeup of the underlying dataset informing algorithmic recommendations will be altered.
Crucially, though, the aforementioned investors are a new group spearheaded by Marc Andreessen’s Andreessen Horowitz, Larry Ellison’s tech giant Oracle, and a private equity firm, Silver Lake. Their common denominator? Open support for President Trump.
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It’s probably not an accident that the White House officials were pushing specifically these firms to take over TikTok’s US operations.
Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, and conservative media moguls Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch will also likely be involved in the deal, Trump said on Monday. They’re also cozy with the president.
One doesn’t need to look far to see what happens when a social media company is taken over by a Trump-friendly billionaire. Under the leadership of Elon Musk, Twitter has been turned into an unfiltered MAGA embassy (and renamed X).
Curiously, in July 2024, the algorithm of X was modified after Musk endorsed Trump for US president to systematically boost Republican-leaning accounts. Pro-Trump oligarchs could also move to use TikTok to shape online discourse leading up to, say, the midterm elections next year.
Fewer constraints, more government say?
Experts and at least some TikTok users are worried. Kelley Cotter, assistant professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State, wrote on The Conversation that millions of US users may choose not to stick with the app if it is seen as under the control of Trump’s allies.
“These influences raise the possibility of a boycott from left-leaning users and creators similar to earlier boycotts of Target for rolling back DEI measures and Disney after the since-reversed suspension of Jimmy Kimmel,” said Cotter.
If you like TikTok now, you shouldn’t expect the new face of the app to be a perfect mirror of the current version.
“This may result in a user population – and data – reflective of a narrower realm of interests and ideologies.”
America’s conservatives today are also wary of any content moderation, so they could adjust TikTok’s algorithm to tolerate more X-like right-wing misinformation.
TikTok’s current Community Guidelines prohibit misinformation and work with independent fact-checkers to assess the accuracy of content. But earlier this year, both Meta and Google’s YouTube moved to loosen content restrictions.
The board of the new joint venture will reportedly be appointed by the US government. The Trump administration appointees might be willing to sway the algorithm to the right, some say.
I'd start informing your friends and loved ones they're going to need to get off of TikTok it's indisputably going to be converted into yet another right wing surveillance and propaganda machine
undefined Karl Bode (@karlbode.com) September 22, 2025 at 5:17 PM
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“I’d start informing your friends and loved ones that they're going to need to get off of TikTok. It's indisputably going to be converted into yet another right-wing surveillance and propaganda machine,” said independent tech reporter Karl Bode.
To sum up, if you like TikTok now, you shouldn’t expect the new face of the app to be a perfect mirror of the current version.
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