Senator Ed Markey sent letters to TikTok US and Oracle demanding contracts and details about whether the joint venture keeping TikTok operating in the U.S. adequately addresses national security concerns over the app's Chinese ties, per CNN. Markey alleged the spin-off arrangement falls short of the spirit of the 2024 law designed to sever ties between TikTok's U.S. operations and ByteDance. He wants the full contracts between Oracle and TikTok US and between TikTok US and ByteDance covering the algorithm license, plus an explanation of how the joint venture audits ByteDance code and adapts the algorithm for U.S. audiences, by June 18. The deal closed in January, just 24 hours before a ban would have taken effect, and put a consortium including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Emirati-backed MGX in majority control, with ByteDance keeping 19.9%. The joint venture plans to retrain TikTok's algorithm on U.S. user data and store data in Oracle's U.S. cloud, but draws the algorithm from ByteDance under a license before retraining.
