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Digital tug of war as the United States and China vie for control over TikTok’s algorithms and influence.

By Angela Huyue Zhang, Project Syndicate | September 26, 2025

Rather than shifting TikTok from Chinese to American control, the Trump administration's new deal merely replaces one form of dependence with another. The app's owner, ByteDance, will no longer oversee daily content recommendations, but China will still have residual control over the platform's algorithms.

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