As Silicon Valley giant Oracle faces backlash over its recent deal with Chinese company ByteDance to enter a partnership with TikTok, the company has promised to review the video-sharing app’s source code and software to ensure that there are no software backdoors that could be accessed by the Chinese government.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd. has agreed to allow Oracle Corp. to review TikTok’s source code and software to ensure that there are no backdoors that would allow the Chinese government or other groups to access the platform’s data. The announcement comes after Oracle has faced criticism for the deal with the Chinese firm.
TikTok reportedly offered a proposal to the Treasury Department over the weekend which aimed to address the Trump administration’s concerns that the app may give the Chinese government access to U.S. user data. The proposal mainly focused on the inclusion of Oracle as a technology partner to TikTok, but the Silicon Valley tech firm would not own TikTok outright and the app would not be transferring its valuable recommendation algorithm to Oracle.
The proposal is under review by a multi-agency national security panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is expected to submit its recommendation to President Trump for a final decision on Thursday, the New York Times reports.
However, many are not supportive of the deal. In a letter on Wednesday, Republican senators including Marco Rubio of Florida, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas criticized the proposal stating that any deal that left a Chinese firm such as ByteDance in control fo the code or algorithms that turn the app failed to address national security concerns.
The Senate Republican stated in the letter that the arrangement with Oracle posed “significant concerns’ and argued that a partial sale or “trusted partnership deal” would be “insufficient in achieving the goals of protecting Americans and U.S. interests.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) also advised in a separate letter that the Trump administration reject the proposal stating that “perhaps, given constraints imposed by Chinese law, the only feasible way to maintain Americans’ security is to effectively ban the TikTok app in the United States altogether.”
At a press conference on Wednesday, President Trump stated: “I’m not prepared to sign off on anything. I have to see the deal. They’re going to be reporting to me tomorrow morning.” The President added that he was “not going to be happy” if TikTok remained largely owned by a Chinese company.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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