“I don’t mind if my data goes to China, I trust them more than I trust the United States,”
Southern University political science student, Salma Ibrahim, expressed in reaction to the announcement of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, one day before the deadline set by President Donald Trump.
To prevent the social media app from being banned in the United States, TikTok handed over US operations to American-owned companies Oracle, MGX, Silver Lake, each holding 15% stakes, eight other companies sharing 35.1%, and Chinese company, ByteDance maintaining 19.9% of TikTok US ownership.
The Joint venture was established after the US Congress passed the ‘Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’ in April 2024, which threatened the ban of TikTok in the US, unless sold to US investors before January 19, 2025. However, President Donald Trump delayed the ban five times over the past year. Finally reaching an agreement with ByteDance, Trump signed an executive order in September 2025, giving the involved parties until late January 2026 to finalize terms. The company announced the transition on January 22, 2026, stating , “The majority American-owned Joint Venture will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for U.S. users.”
After reading the updated terms and conditions for US users, Urban Forestry major Cire Portegies called the language “ambiguous” and “concerning.”
“With a separate algorithm from the rest of the world, and therefore a virtually different app, it’s easy to assume that censorship is one of the agendas being pushed by this venture.”
Some Southern University TikTok users have already experienced such censorship that Portegies suspects.
Andrew James, a Junior psychology major, shared, “When I saw the new update, I said, ‘they’re going to start hiding something’ because they understand we get a lot of our information from TikTok.” Proving himself right, “the same day ICE agents murdered Alex Pretti, my For You Page got sent back to December, showing me videos I’ve already seen.”
James poses a concerning issue: “Unfortunately, a lot of our youth are not literate enough to do research outside of what they see on TikTok, so I feel like a lot of misinformation is going to start being spread through TikTok.”
According to the National Literacy Institution, 40% of students nationwide read below a basic level, and 1 in 4 young adults (ages 16-24) are functional illiterates. Nieman Lab reveals in their 2025 study that 43% of adults under 30 get their news from TikTok.
Southern University students suggest that TikTok USDS Joint Venture, LLC, has also further weakened Gen Z’s support and trust for the Trump Administration.
“I post quite often, so to know that my data is being stored now by a government I don’t trust in any capacity is worrying,” Ibrahim stated.
Her classmate, Jahzaira Gipson, also a political science major, concurs, “I’m already irritated with the current presidency; it’s just crazy to see little stuff like our social media being affected because of the power he wants.”
“It brings us back to the 2nd World War. They get to control the narrative and propaganda and use your data and opinion against you.” Said John MCcree, a history professor at Southern University and a TikTok user himself.
Although narrowly avoiding losing more than 200 million American users, TikTok’s future in the US is not promising.
“I still think TikTok has its benefits, but with an increasingly inorganic feed, I could easily see myself limiting use in the near future,” explained Portegies.
Sensor Data Tower reported to CNBC that there has been a 150% daily increase in US users deleting the app.
