Narrative is power. For millennia, history has been meticulously documented in scroll and script, forming the analog cloud of human memory. However, the past decade has brought a seismic shift. From scroll to screen and script to for-you page, Gen-Z now stands at the forefront of this revolution. Yet with Trump’s TikTok deal bringing Oracle into the mix, a new question arises: what happens to free speech and authentic voice when the platforms shaping our stories become political chess pieces?
Last month, the White House confirmed that Oracle will oversee TikTok’s US operations under a $14B deal orchestrated by Donald Trump. According to a White House Official: “Oracle will operate in partnership with the US government to ensure safety and data security across the entire TikTok platform — from source code review, to algorithm retraining, to application development and deployment.” But the decision to retrain the US algorithm raises some interesting questions: will this process really strengthen data security, or will it quietly recalibrate the platform’s content dynamics? If the algorithm defines what users see, won’t altering its parameters under government oversight risk transforming a content recommendation tool into a mechanism of political or cultural influence? During recent remarks, Trump mentioned that Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell were involved as key investors in the deal. Hence bringing some of America’s most powerful corporate figures (as well as Trump’s staunch allies) into direct collaboration with the government on an issue concerning the privacy of millions of American youth.
On the surface, this move is certainly part of a larger picture; one that concerns the US-China trade tensions and Washington’s ongoing campaign to limit Chinese influence in American digital infrastructure. Yet beneath that diplomatic façade lies the deeper concern of the potential political control over the primary digital town square of youth culture, discourse, and online activism. A White House statement last month confirmed that Oracle “will operate, retrain, and continuously monitor the U.S. algorithm to ensure content is free from improper manipulation or surveillance.” But what constitutes improper manipulation and surveillance? In a public appearance last year, Larry Ellison painted an Orwellian picture: “Citizens will be on their best behaviour because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” The paradox? The company tasked with protecting Americans from surveillance may also be building the very system that normalizes it.
Canada is positioned in the midst of an interesting dilemma here. As the US and China tighten their data borders, Canada’s middle-ground stance on tech governance could either make it a model for ethical data stewardship, or a passive participant in a new surveillance bloc. With its deep integration into U.S. data infrastructure and its own growing debates on digital sovereignty, will Canada align with the Oracle-led infrastructure of oversight, or adopt a more neutral, transparent alternative?
The convergence of political, corporate, and media power borne from this Oracle-Tiktok deal raises serious questions about who gets to control the flow of digital narratives. Because at the end of the day, narrative is power. And in a world where fragments of our lives live as datasets on servers owned by billionaires and backed by governments, the act of storytelling itself becomes political. Control over narrative has evolved into control over data. As social platforms become extensions of national infrastructure, the politics of speech are increasingly tied to the politics of storage. The future of free expression may depend less on who speaks, and more on who governs the servers that store their words.
Works Cited
Rosner-Uddin, R., Sevastopulo, D., & Rogers, A. (2025, September 22). TikTok algorithm to be overseen by Oracle in Trump deal. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/d27e00b5-1997-4f28-b0f7-19139167be31 Lee, N. T. (2025, October 2). TikTok may not be Chinese-owned anymore, but there still is a privacy problem. Brookings Institution.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tiktok-may-not-be-chinese-owned-anymore-bu t-there-still-is-a-privacy-problem/
Rogers, E. (2025, September 29). Oracle acquires TikTok US amid Ellison’s AI surveillance push and privacy fears. WebProNews.
https://www.webpronews.com/oracle-acquires-tiktok-us-amid-ellisons-ai-surveillan ce-push-and-privacy-fears/
Chow, A. R. (2025, September 22). TikTok, Trump, and the politics of surveillance. Time.
https://time.com/7319281/tiktok-trump-surveillance-china/
Whateley, D., & Bradley, S. (2025, September 26). Who could take over TikTok’s U.S. business: Investors or Oracle? Business Insider.
https://www.businessinsider.com/who-could-take-over-tiktok-us-business-investor s-oracle-ellison-2025-9
Kerr, D., & Agencies. (2025, September 26). US TikTok deal explained. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/22/us-tiktok-deal-explained