Saved by the O.
Oracle, that is.
With a Sept. 20 deadline looming for an American company to buy TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance in China, or else President Donald Trump would ban its use in the United States for security reasons, Oracle announced earlier this week it has struck a deal to become the social media app’s new technology partner.
Since Trump made the announcement about his proposed ban on July 31, 100 million of TikTok’s U.S. monthly users were concerned about the app’s fate.
“I am definitely obsessed with TikTok,” said junior Olivia King, who started watching video content in late 2018 and watches for 4-5 hours a day. “I am very excited it is staying in the U.S. because I genuinely do not know what I would do with my time.”
She views all genres of content, but has been recently interested by nail tutorials and dance challenges, and continuously is on the app when bored at home.
“It has kept me entertained for months and if it was gone, quarantine would be much more difficult for me to get through,” King said.
Besides Oracle, Microsoft through a partnership with Walmart, had announced their interest in purchasing TikTok from ByteDance, according to various business media reports.
Senior Paul Dhillon said he was relieved that Oracle ended up with Tiktok in the end.
“Microsoft tends to ruin everything it buys such as Skype and Minecraft because they became less popular,” Dhillon said. “I don’t want TikTok to suffer the same fate.”
Oracle, a company that sells database technology with a total of 47 acquisitions, none of which are social media apps, seeks approval of the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States and President Trump before further action can be taken.
Senior Sarah Roh is among some of the Sunny Hills creators on TikTok, having spent 1.5 hours a day creating content for more than 325,000 followers since March 2020. Her videos range from providing fashion tips to giving her mother a makeover.
The video that has accrued the most views as of Sept. 15 is one that features her mom and herself lip-synching and has accumulated a total of 3.5 million views.
Roh said she did doubt that this social media app would ever go away.
“It was funny because I could not take [Trump] seriously when there are other serious issues going on in the world,” said Roh, whose latest TikTok project is a split-screen point-of-view (POV) duet with another creator.
As for junior Josue Mendez, he does believe action should be taken if it were to protect American users’ data, but wants TikTok to remain in the U.S.
“I hope it does stay as it gives many people an escape and a little bit of joy,” Mendez said. “I hope that the platform remains fun and entertaining even after a deal is finalized.”
