{"id":141178,"date":"2025-09-16T13:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T13:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/141178\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T13:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T13:11:11","slug":"beijing-says-tiktoks-us-app-will-use-chinese-algorithm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/141178\/","title":{"rendered":"Beijing says TikTok\u2019s US app will use Chinese algorithm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Beijing has said the US spin-off of TikTok to be sold to American investors in a deal orchestrated by President Donald Trump will use parent company ByteDance\u2019s Chinese algorithm.<\/p>\n

Wang Jingtao, deputy head of China\u2019s powerful cyber security regulator, told reporters on Monday night that US and Chinese officials had agreed a framework that included \u201clicensing the algorithm and other intellectual property rights\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said ByteDance would \u201centrust the operation of TikTok\u2019s US user data and content security\u201d, without elaborating.<\/p>\n

TikTok<\/a>\u2019s powerful recommendation algorithm has been at the heart of a geopolitical tug of war over the short-video app since the first Trump administration, when Beijing unveiled export controls on algorithms to thwart a forced sale of the app.<\/p>\n

The AI algorithm underpins the app\u2019s prized ability to serve up addictive videos tailored to individual users, but has also raised fears among national security hawks that it could be manipulated to push Chinese propaganda or polarising material to users.<\/p>\n

US officials have insisted that any deal must ensure TikTok\u2019s recommendation algorithm is fully severed from ByteDance<\/a>, warning that continued co-operation could allow Beijing to maintain influence over the content seen by Americans.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear to what extent TikTok\u2019s Chinese parent would retain control of the algorithm in the US as part of a licensing deal.<\/p>\n

An Asia-based investor of ByteDance said the new US TikTok entity would use at least part of the Chinese algorithm but train it in the US on American user data. \u201cBeijing\u2019s bottom line is a licensing deal,\u201d said the investor. \u201cBeijing wants to be seen as exporting Chinese technology to the US and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the ultimate Taco trade,\u201d said one US adviser close to the deal, referring to the acronym \u201cTrump always chickens out\u201d. \u201cAfter all this, China keeps the algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n

American and Chinese officials reached a framework agreement<\/a> on Monday after two days of talks in Madrid to hammer out a deal that would keep the Chinese-owned app online in the US.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has repeatedly intervened to keep TikTok available despite US law that required ByteDance to divest its American operations of the video-sharing app or face a nationwide ban.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s top two trade negotiators, vice-premier He Lifeng and deputy commerce minister Li Chenggang, indicated that Beijing would approve the export of TikTok\u2019s algorithm.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Coco<\/a><\/p>\n

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent separately told reporters that the spun-off app would be controlled by American investors but preserve some \u201cChinese characteristics\u201d, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n

Another person familiar with the matter said TikTok had been developing a standalone US app in anticipation of a deal but was keen to ensure that content generated by American users would still be available to users in the \u201crest of the world\u201d app and vice versa.<\/p>\n

Ahead of a previous April deadline, the White House was close to an agreement<\/a> that would have spun off US TikTok into a company receiving new investment, potentially diluting the stakes of Chinese investors.<\/p>\n

Under the terms of that deal, investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone, would have owned about half of TikTok\u2019s US business, while large existing investors, including General Atlantic, Susquehanna and KKR, would have held about 30 per cent of the new entity.<\/p>\n

As part of that deal, Oracle, which already stores the personal data of American users on its US cloud servers, would have taken a small holding in the new business and also been responsible for securing the US app\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

It is unclear whether the broad contours of the current deal will match the April proposal. However, new investors are expected to join the consortium, according to people familiar with the matter, after some investors such as Blackstone pulled out.<\/p>\n

Some analysts have said that the algorithm must be fully operated by the US entity to meet the requirements of the divest-or-ban law signed by then-president Joe Biden last year. That would preclude a licensing deal with ByteDance.<\/p>\n

But the law allows the US president to determine if ByteDance has fully divested from TikTok, giving Trump the power to approve the deal.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Antoine Gara in New York, Wenjie Ding in Beijing and Arash Massoudi in London<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-141178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}