Australia may have to choose between a Chinese TikTok and one owned by Trump’s billionaire backers
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Version 1 of 2. Expert raises concerns about what US TikTok deal could mean for News Corp’s ‘worrying dominance’ in Australian media Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Would you rather a Chinese-owned TikTok or one run by a consortium of Trump-supporting billionaires? That’s the choice Australia is being asked to consider. The Trump administration has outlined that a proposed deal for TikTok to remain in operation in the United States would transfer the control of TikTok’s US operations to a US company that will have seven seats on the board, with six filled by Americans. Donald Trump has suggested a consortium of US businesses, including Larry Ellison’s Oracle and Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, are involved in the deal. TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. US Congress passed a law in 2024 to ban the social media app unless it was sold to a US company, citing national security and privacy concerns. The Trump administration has extended the deadline for the ban several times as a deal was hashed out between the US and China. As part of the proposed deal, TikTok’s proprietary algorithm “will also be controlled by America”, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said. The move led to the Liberal senator James Paterson suggesting that if the deal went ahead then Australia should move to the US version of the app. “It would be an unfortunate thing if there was a safe version of TikTok in the United States, but a version of TikTok in Australia which was still controlled by a foreign authoritarian government,” he told Murdoch’s Sky News. Tom Sulston, head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, said it was the surveillance of users that was the issue, not the ownership of TikTok, and that the move to bring TikTok under US control was “baffling”. “The problem is not the ownership. The problem is the constant and intrusive surveillance of the user base. Users of a US-owned TikTok won’t enjoy any more privacy than they did with a Chinese-owned TikTok, on account of the lack of meaningful regulation of social media companies,” he said. “TikTok users will still be pervasively surveilled as they use the internet, and that surveillance will be used both to advertise at them and by national intelligence services to profile them.” Skye Predavec, a fellow at the Australia Institute, which is campaigning for a royal commission into the Murdoch media, said she was concerned about what a News Corp stake in TikTok could mean for the company’s already “worrying dominance”. “If [the Murdochs] have part ownership of TikTok, that gives them a whole new level of control over media, and TikTok is becoming such an incredibly important part of our public discourse and elections,” she said. “That sort of concentration is pretty worrying, I think.” Sulston said the TikTok algorithm would remain secretive as it currently is when under US control, given Meta and other social media platforms deploy algorithms with little transparency. “All of these companies rely on secret algorithms that use the industrial-scale surveillance of internet users to recommend content and advertisements.” Dr Dana McKay, associate dean in interaction, technology and information at RMIT University, said the best move from a data and security perspective would be for Australia to have its own local version of TikTok. But McKay warned that a shift in ownership could mean a new version of the app that no longer meets users’ expectations. TikTok’s major drawcard was its algorithm, she said, and it was not clear whether the data used to form recommendations would transfer to the US as part of the deal. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion “The current status is that the algorithm is going to be rebuilt by Oracle, but until they have significant data on how people watch videos, there is likely to be a noticeable dip in user experience,” McKay said. “This may last days or weeks, depending on how much data the current algorithm is relying on.” Could this turn users off or push them to another app? Sulston raised the spectre of News Corp’s last failed attempt at entering the social media market with Myspace. In 2005, News Corp paid US$580m for what was then the peak of online socialising. At its peak, Myspace was valued at US$12bn. But then Facebook arrived. It was easier to navigate and had better features, and a move was on. By June 2008, Facebook was being visited more than Myspace by Australians, even ahead of the US, which didn’t shift until 2009. Rupert Murdoch, frustrated, reportedly sold Myspace for US$35m in 2011. “News Corp sold Myspace for the best part of half a billion dollars less than they paid for it, which was a lot of money [back then]. Maybe this will be another fizzer,” Sulston said. The federal government has indicated that its position on TikTok – which is banned on government devices – remained the same, and that the developments in the US were being monitored as they progressed. News Corp and TikTok were approached for comment. |