A deal between the US and China on TikTok that was finalized on January 22 concludes a years-long saga that put in peril the social media platform’s ability to function in the United States. US officials had long argued that TikTok, previously owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, posed national security risks. In particular, US officials warned the app collects vast amounts of data about users that the Chinese government could use to track individuals or “help manipulate social discourse and amplify false information to tens of millions of Americans.”

The geopolitical theater around the TikTok deal obscures a fundamental problem at its core: transferring TikTok to US owners is likely to further consolidate ownership and control of information among investors and companies that US regulation does not compel to prioritize the rights and interests of users. When paired with the Trump administration’s abusive policies, a deregulatory agenda, and a tendency to strongarm industry for political reasons, there is no reason to believe that a deal would ensure that human rights related to privacy, freedom of expression, and transparency and accountability are secured.

In fact, changes to TikTok’s privacy policy and terms of service put in place once TikTok became an American entity signal the company is looking to expand its ability to target advertising and track the location of people who give the app permission to do so.

Tech companies wield enormous power over how we access information and over data about us. Most social media platforms—where many people in the US obtain news—are controlled by a handful of tech companies including Meta, X, Google, and TikTok. These companies also collect copious amounts of our personal data, which they can repurpose to enhance their power and influence over our lives. Their engagement-based business model is engineered to personalize the content we view to maximize clicks, likes, and shares, which in turn generates more data on us, and leads to more advertising revenue.

Traditional media are also highly concentrated. Just five corporations own about 90 percent of US broadcasting media and an additional proposal may further consolidate ownership.  A  handful of other companies own much of the remainder of publishing, telecoms and streaming media in the US. The Murdoch and Ellison families, primary owners of two of the five largest media corporations, are among the main investors who are reportedly likely to take over TikTok in an eventual deal.

The shrinking number of private companies controlling communications technology means that an increasing market share of the information ecosystem is influenced by the relationships these companies share with the Trump administration.

Technology and media corporate leaders have cultivated close ties with President Trump since his 2024 election victory. Leaders from Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and OpenAI donated millions for  the inauguration and were seated prominently at the ceremony. In September, dozens of tech CEOs and venture capitalists  attended a White House dinner, where many showered Trump with praise.  In October, representatives from many companies agreed at a special dinner to donate hundreds of millions to the White House ballroom project. In the first half of 2025, tech companies that have an inherent interest in loosening federal regulations and oversight  spent over $320,000 per day on federal lobbying.

Much of the engagement from the largest tech companies has centered on AI policy and in 2025, the administration issued three executive orders on artificial intelligence and an “AI Action Plan,” which technology de-regulation lobbyists and tech companies have been quick to praise. Civil society groups criticized the AI Plan as effectively opening the door to more deregulation rather than a robustly regulated rollout of AI. The administration has now put forward an executive order that aims to block state- and local-level AI regulations.

In addition to deregulation, anticompetition policy also looms large.  The FCC is now reviewing regulation of ownership of broadcast media, which could pave the way for further consolidation of ownership and control in a few companies.

The Trump administration’s efforts to exert influence over tech companies are becoming clear too.

Since Trump’s reelection, Meta, YouTube, and X settled lawsuits that challenged their 2021 suspension of Trump for inciting the January 6 riots, all for hefty sums.

In January 2025, Meta announced that it would allow “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes,” making significant changes to its policies and practices that would apply to hate speech, content moderation, and fact checking to allow more speech that is part of “mainstream discourse.” Meta’s shift on moderation risks backsliding on its responsibility to respect human rights, and could expose marginalized people to harm, both on its platforms and offline.

Both Apple and Google have removed  apps that allowed people to alert others nearby about Immigration and Customs Enforcement  agents in their area. Meta removed a Facebook group used by nearly 80,000 people to  warn Chicago-area residents on locations and sightings of immigration enforcement agents, following Department of Justice demands and without providing the group with any warnings, flags, or restrictions.

The president has significant leverage over the country’s most powerful corporations. The administration has already attempted to use  executive branch power to effectively coerce or punish disfavored media companies like Disney, the New York Times, the Associated Press, the BBC, and others. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have also exerted pressure on communications technology companies by characterizing their moderation of content, including efforts to address mis- and disinformation, as censorship, which could lead to stripping them of their legal protections.

To understand what’s at stake, it’s worth examining how unchecked government influence over tech companies operates in practice.

China offers an example of how a powerful, authoritarian government can wield technology to achieve near-complete social control.  The government effectively controls all mass media. While search engines like Baidu and social media platforms like WeChat and Douyin (also owned by ByteDance) are not owned by the government, they must strictly follow its censorship and surveillance requirements.

Many—if not all—major tech companies contain Chinese Communist Party cells, which call the shots on the companies’ major decisions. The government has also “stationed” internet police  in tech companies, ensuring that they “forever follow the Party.” Failure to be in lockstep with the Party means not only an end to their business, but possible imprisonment and “disappearance” for its executives.

The US does not wield the same sort of authoritarian control over the communications technology sector. Yet the transfer of TikTok to a group of US investors, which includes owners of major communications and media companies, has occurred  as oversight and independence of tech and media are increasingly being used by the Trump administration as either carrots or sticks to align company and administration policy.

As Human Rights Watch has documented in other contexts, media pluralism, meaning the existence of a diverse range of media outlets with varying ownership structures and viewpoints, is essential for freedom of expression and provides a level of independent scrutiny that helps uphold the rule of law.

The Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, a set of nonbinding principles developed in 2000 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, states that “monopolies or oligopolies in the ownership and control of the communication media must be subject to anti-trust laws, as they conspire against democracy by limiting the plurality and diversity which ensure the full exercise of people’s right to information.”

Additionally, the TikTok deal is being framed as a victory for security and privacy, but the reality is far messier. The Trump administration has claimed that the deal ensures that US users’ personal data does not come “under the control of a foreign adversary,” and that Oracle, now holding a 15 percent stake in the company, is “trusted, secure.” But in 2024, Oracle  paid $115 million to settle a class action lawsuit that alleged it violated the privacy of about  five  billion people by collecting and selling their data without their consent. And because the US still lacks comprehensive data protection regulation, the personal data of US users is not safe simply because it is in the hands of a domestic company.

The TikTok deal is not simply about national security or the political and economic competition between China and the US. It reveals how the types of governance systems that tech companies are subject to matter. Tech companies have not been subjected to adequate, rights respecting regulation in the US, and what regulation there was, is being rolled back. And under Trump, the institutions needed to protect rights in this context, like the FTC, FCC, and the courts, are increasingly under attack or being weaponized.

With the deal in place, many TikTok users in the US may be breathing a sigh of relief knowing that the funny memes and the viral reels will continue. But what is not trending is the real human impact of the deal.

It is time, then, for the ultimate TikTok challenge: Demand respect for our privacy along with our entertainment, not one or the other, and that the US government puts in place meaningful controls to enable an ecosystem with media pluralism with diverse ownership and viewpoints, protects personal data, and hold social media platforms accountable to their users.

Deborah Brown is deputy technology and rights director at Human Rights Watch. Brian Root is a senior adviser in the organization’s Technology, Rights and Investigations division.