Democratic Media Strategists Confront a New Era for TikTok
The revelation that TikTok’s U.S. business plans to retrain the popular video app’s algorithm is raising alarm among media strategists on the left, who fear that it could come under the influence of President Donald Trump’s allies.
In conversations with Campaigns & Elections, Democratic and progressive social media professionals acknowledged that it’s too early to know how TikTok’s algorithm could change under the ownership of a new U.S. entity. In the meantime, most said they plan to continue on with their current TikTok strategies, though some are debating the long-term viability of staying on the app.
“Creators are losing their minds over it and rightfully so,” said Caleb Brock, the director of digital strategy for Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) reelection campaign. “There’s a very big worry about free speech implications and candidates or firms looking to get into it need to monitor the changes closely.”
At any rate, the deal to sell TikTok’s U.S. business to a group of non-Chinese investors has rattled some strategists at a moment when campaigns and their consultants are ramping up their presences on the app, which is used by about a third of U.S. adults and is particularly popular among younger adults.
While campaigns have maintained a presence on TikTok for years, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s vaunted TikTok operation during his 2025 campaign helped turbocharge interest in the app among many consultants, who previously treated it as an afterthought in social media strategy.
The primary concern for Democratic and progressive media strategists is the U.S. business’ ownership, which includes firms tied to Trump allies – most notably Oracle’s billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison, who maintains a close relationship with the president and frequently visits the White House and Mar-a-Lago.
Another notable investor is the Emirati investment firm MGX, which has previously been involved in deals with Trump and his family.
In announcing the TikTok deal last week, the entity said that it would retrain the content recommendation algorithm that it will be licensing from TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance. While it’s unclear what about the algorithm could change, some on the left have questioned whether the U.S. TikTok’s owners could use their influence to censor content they dislike or deprioritize videos critical of Trump or his administration.
A spokesperson for the TikTok U.S. joint venture told C&E that it had not yet started retraining the algorithm. The app experienced a power outage at a U.S. data center that caused disruptions for U.S. users just days after the joint venture was announced.
In a widely shared post on X this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) claimed that, under the deal, Ellison will effectively “control the TikTok algorithm.” (Oracle owns a 15 percent stake in the TikTok joint venture, while Ellison owned 41 percent of Oracle’s shares as of July).
One Democratic media consultant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, questioned whether it’s worth investing serious time and effort into TikTok in the wake of the deal, noting that the percentage of U.S. users who are deleting the app has soared in recent days.
The consultant said that he wasn’t particularly worried about algorithmic changes to the app, but argued that the new U.S. TikTok is facing a “crisis of trust” among some of its most reliable users.
“The thing about TikTok is that it was this place that I think a lot of people – especially younger people – saw as a space where creators could be their more authentic selves,” the consultant said. “There was kind of this trust baked into it. And I think that’s going away.”
“I’m asking myself: Is this going to be as relevant in six months or in a year?” he added. “Should I be telling clients to go all in on this?”
Brock, the digital strategy director, said that TikTok’s U.S operation has “a lot of work to rebuild trust, if that’s even something they’re interested in.” Users, he said, have already “put up with a lot” when it comes to TikTok.
“People turn on brands fast,” Brock said.
