It's the Brian Lear Show on WNYC. I'm producer Amina Cerna, filling in for Brian today.

Good morning again, everyone. Tick-Tock in the United States has entered a new phase. The American version of the app now has a new ownership structure, one that includes major corporations and investment firms with close ties to President Donald Trump. The transition has already been rocky with a nationwide outage earlier this week,

a newly updated terms of service, and growing claims from users that political content is being

throttled or censored. So what actually changed? Who's in charge now, who controls the

algorithm, and what does this mean for a new

era of speech, surveillance, and power on one of the most influential platforms in the country?

Joining us is Victoria Elliott, senior writer for Wired, who covers platforms and power. She's

reporting on TikTok's new American owners

and the questions they raise about trust and control. Hi, Victoria. Welcome to WMIC. Thanks for having me.

And listeners, we want to hear from you. Are you a TikTok user or creator? Have you noticed

changes lately in what you see, what performs well, or what feels risky to post?

Do you trust the platform more, less, or about the same under its new ownership?

212-433 WNYC, that's 212-433-9692.

You can also text that number.

Vittoria, who owns TikTok's US operations now?

And how different is this structure from what existed before the transfer?

So the new TikTok owners are a bunch of investors that are lumped together under TikTok

USDS Joint Venture LLC. And it's made up of a group of investors, but the one that has

caught people's attention and caused the most concern is Oracle, which is a company co-founded by Larry Ellison, who has long been

a Trump ally. He is also a tech billionaire, but not necessarily as public as people like

Elon Musk, but he has been a longtime Trump supporter. And that is something that has been

particularly concerning. I think a lot of

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