Trump celebrates TikTok deal as Beijing suggests US app would use China’s algorithm; The Guardian, September 16, 2025

Guardian staff and agencies , The Guardian; Trump celebrates TikTok deal as Beijing suggests US app would use China’s algorithm

[Kip Currier: Wasn't fears about the Chinese government's potential ability to manipulate U.S. TikTok users via the TikTok algorithm one of the chief rationales for the past Congress and Biden administration's banning of TikTok? How does this Trump 2.0 deal materially change any of that?

Another rationale for the ban was concerns about China's potential to access and leverage the personal data and impinge the privacy interests of TikTok users in the U.S. How does this proposed arrangement substantively address these concerns, particularly without comprehensive federal data and privacy legislation to give Americans agency over their own data?

The American people need maximal transparency and oversight of any kind of financial deal like this.]

[Excerpt]

"One of the major questions is the fate of TikTok’s powerful algorithm that helped the app become one of the world’s most popular sources of online entertainment.

At a press conference in Madrid, the deputy head of China’s cyber security regulator said the framework of the deal included “licensing the algorithm and other intellectual property rights”.

Wang Jingtao said ByteDance would “entrust the operation of TikTok’s US user data and content security.”

Some commentators have inferred from these comments that TikTok’s US spinoff will retain the Chinese algorithm."

Social Security whistleblower quits after saying Americans’ data was compromised; The Washington Post, August 29, 2025

Maegan Vazquez

 and 

Meryl Kornfield

, The Washington Post; Social Security whistleblower quits after saying Americans’ data was compromised

"A Social Security Administration official responsible for overseeing the agency’s data access resigned from his role on Friday, days after submitting a whistleblower complaint alleging that U.S. DOGE Service staffers uploaded critical personal information for more than 300 million people to the digital cloud."

Trump’s Stats Boss Plots Way to Stop Giving Bad Jobs Numbers; The Daily Beast, August 12, 2025

Sarah Ewall-Wice  , The Daily Beast; Trump’s Stats Boss Plots Way to Stop Giving Bad Jobs Numbers

"President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggested ending the monthly jobs report after the president raged about July’s numbers. 

E.J. Antoni, who Trump tapped on Monday to lead the bureau, argued in an interview Tuesday with Fox Business that the data behind the monthly reports was unreliable and that it should be suspended.

“Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data,” Antoni said...

University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers called ending monthly reports a “disastrously bad idea.”

“Non-farm payrolls data collection has been running continuously since 1939, through wars, and depressions, and global pandemics. At no point through that nearly century-long history, has anyone suggested that the public would be better off without these data,” he told the Daily Beast."

What if You Can’t Believe the Official Numbers?; The New York Times, August 8, 2025

 Jeff Sommer, The New York Times; What if You Can’t Believe the Official Numbers?

"Imagine living in a country where you can’t trust the government’s numbers."