Earlier this year, the TikTok US saga finally came to an end. After spending a good part of 2025 trying to negotiate a deal that would see ByteDance sell off its TikTok US operations to a US company, that deal closed at the start of 2026. But it seems that there are still questions remaining, although TikTok appears to have backed out over child safety questions.
TikTok backs out of child safety questions
TikTok was supposed to be part of a meeting with the House Select Committee on China. The meeting was scheduled to take place on September 15. However, the company decided to pull out. Apparently, TikTok claims that it cannot answer questions related to child safety due to ongoing litigation.
However, Committee Chairman John Moolenaar said child safety concerns were not even part of the meeting’s agenda to begin with. Instead, the meeting was supposed to be about China’s influence over TikTok’s algorithm and its access to American data.
According to Moolenaar, “Over the last five months, the Committee has negotiated in good faith with TikTok and the company agreed to have its Chief Security Officer appear at a bipartisan Committee roundtable in September. Now, TikTok is refusing to appear, citing its own desire to avoid broader scrutiny of its child safety practices.”
He adds, “We will continue to work in good faith to protect the American people and ensure TikTok executives publicly address the Committee’s questions regarding its operations and safeguards – consistent with the requirements of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – before the end of the year.”
Concerns over China’s influence
That being said, one of the main driving factors behind the US government’s push to buy TikTok was concern over China’s influence. ByteDance, for those unfamiliar, is a Chinese-owned company. There are concerns that data gathered by ByteDance could be viewed by the Chinese government. This in turn would have given the Chinese government a lot of data on American citizens.
Now, following the sale of TikTok US, Oracle is expected to retrain the algorithm. However, the meeting was supposed to find out how much influence China or ByteDance has left. Lawmakers also want to find out how the data transition is being audited. They also want to know if the US algorithm is truly functioning independently or if China and ByteDance might have backdoor access.
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