Concerns about TikTok’s policy changes point to a deeper problem in the tech industry
Just over a year later TikTok has temporarily gone dark in the US Greeted with a message explaining that “A law has been enacted banning TikTok,” these same American users opened the app to find a pop-up message asking them to agree to the new terms before they could continue scrolling.
New Terms of Service and privacy policy It took effect on January 22, 2026, following the sale of the app from ByteDance to TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a majority US-owned company which is said to… I will take control Data and Content of U.S. Users and the App Recommendation algorithm.
People see these type of pop-ups all the time, and according to research, “The biggest lie on the Internet“is that people read nothing at all before clicking ‘Agree.'” But because many users are uncomfortable about changing ownership, including fears that Swapping Chinese surveillance for American surveillance – It’s no surprise that people care this time. Screenshots of the legal language quickly spread across the Internet, accompanied by warnings about a massive new data collection operation.
I both a Tik Tok content maker And a Researcher in technology ethics and policy Who has Study the terms and conditions of the siteEspecially whether people read it (they don’t) and how well they understand it (they don’t either). When I saw the outrage on social media, I immediately dove into the terms of service and privacy policy which sent me down the rabbit hole. Road machine And also consider similar policies of other apps and TikTok policies in other countries.
Ultimately, I found that in the most widespread examples, the language that seemed most troubling either barely changed at all or described fairly standard practices across social media.
Some changes aren’t really changes
Consider the list of “sensitive personal information” in TikTok’s new privacy policy, which includes items like sexual orientation and immigration status. Many users interpreted this list as evidence that TikTok has started collecting more personal data. However, this exact same list appeared in Previous version of TikTok’s US Privacy Policywhich was last updated in August 2024. In both cases, the language focuses on “information you disclose” — for example, in your content or in responses to user surveys.
Presumably, this language is there to comply with state privacy laws such as California’s Consumer Privacy ActWhich includes disclosure requirements for the collection of certain categories of information. TikTok’s new policy specifically cited California law. Meta Privacy Policy It lists very similar categories, and this language generally tends to refer to regulatory compliance through disclosure of current data collection rather than additional monitoring.
Location tracking has also raised concerns. The new policy states that TikTok may “collect precise location data, depending on your settings.” This is a change, but it is also just that Common practice For major social media apps.
This change also brings the company’s US policy in line with TikTok’s policies in other countries. For example the company EEA Privacy Policy It has a very similar language, and Users in the United Kingdom You must grant precise location access to use the Nearby Feed to find events and businesses near them.
Although apps have other ways to approximate location, such as IP address, the user will have to grant permission through location services on their phone for TikTok to access precise location via GPS, a permission TikTok has not yet requested from US users. However, the new policy opens the door for users to have the option to grant this permission in the future.
No news does not equal good news
None of this means that users are wrong to be cautious. Even if TikTok’s legal language around data privacy is industry standard, who controls your data and feed is still very relevant. App uninstalls rose 130% in the days following the change Many users are expressing their concern About the relations between the new owners and President Donald Trump – Especially OracleThe company is led by Trump supporter Larry Ellison.
It also didn’t help that TikTok’s first week under US ownership was a week Complete disaster. Serious technical issues – later attributed by TikTok to A Power outage in the data center – Coinciding with the announcement of the new ownership, fueling Widespread concerns about censorship of content critical of the US government. Maybe some users remember that Trump once joked About creating a “100% MAGA” platform.
But regardless of what actually happened, distrust of tech companies at this point isn’t entirely irrational.
Clarity and confidence
However, the confusion between very real structural risks and unfamiliar sentences in legal documents can obscure what is actually changing and what is not. Misinformation about TikTok’s policy changes that has spread across social media is also evidence of a known design failure: most tech policies are not designed to be read.
My own business He revealed that these documents are often written at a college or even graduate reading level. Another analysis I once calculated that if every American read the privacy policy of every site they visit for just one year, it would cost $785 billion in lost free time and productivity.
So the debate over TikTok’s policies is a case study of the profound mismatch between how tech companies communicate and how people interpret risks, especially in an era of exceptionally low trust in both. Big technology and government. Right now, the mystery doesn’t seem neutral. It feels threatening.
Instead of dismissing these reactions as overblown, I think companies should realize that if a significant portion of their user base is assuming the worst, it’s not a reading comprehension problem; It’s a trust problem. So writing data privacy policies more clearly is a start, but rebuilding any kind of inherent trust in the management of that data is perhaps the most important challenge.
