You heard it here first (or second, or twelfth): TikTok is now officially USA-ish. In a move nobody saw coming except everyone, President Trump signed an executive order today paving the way for TikTok to be owned by a U.S. group of investors — Oracle, Silver Lake, and some others who probably still don’t know how to do a TikTok dance.
The plan: China’s ByteDance will keep a tiny slice, but the algorithm and data are now “retrained with U.S. data” to protect Americans’ privacy. Or maybe just to keep us from watching too many Korean mukbangs — details fuzzy.
But here’s the twist: despite all this “nationalization” fanfare, the app still feels exactly the same at 3:02 AM when you’re doom-scrolling. The “For You” feed is still cats, cooking hacks nobody asked for, and videos titled “Top 5 conspiracy theories your weird uncle believes.” Nothing changed but the paperwork.
U.S. users under 30 are relieved — finally, some clarity. But others are suspicious: what if the “retrained algorithm” just means every video has a bald eagle watermark now? Or the National Anthem plays if you scroll too long?
In other news (but related somehow), Trump said the deal preserves “every philosophy, every policy” and that the new investors will treat them all “right.” Which probably means you’ll still see dance videos, but maybe with more red, white, and blue glitch overlays.
Sleepy Takeaway: All that legalese and executive paper pushing might not change what keeps you awake at night: that one video of a guinea pig playing piano at 4 AM. But hey, now the lawyers say we own it. Goodnight?
