In a bid to prove it can be trusted in the US, TikTok will give Oracle full access to its source code, algorithm, and content-moderation material.
Oracle started monitoring China's access to TikTok last year as part of a plan called "Project Texas." However, as The Information reports, Oracle employees were not given full access to TikTok and aren't carrying out comprehensive reviews of the service, despite statements to the contrary issued last year. Whatever the current state, in-depth reviews by Oracle now look set to happen imminently.
As Bloomberg reports, TikTok will allow Oracle unconstrained access to its platform "soon." Oracle is also expected to start monitoring "controlled gateways," which are the points where data enters and exits the secured TikTok servers for US user data running on Oracle's cloud infrastructure.
According to TikTok, "many of the major components of Project Texas are already operational, and we will continue bringing more parts of the initiative online in the coming weeks and months." This comes amid continued scrutiny of the service by the US government, and an impending ban of the service in Montana (TikTok has sued to stop the latter).
TikTok was recently ordered to pay millions for failing to keep kids off its app and a former ByteDance executive claims the platform stole content from Snapchat and Instagram to boost TikTok engagement. Even taking all this into account, whether you support a TikTok ban or not seems to depend on your age.