As a prospective deal takes shape to hand partial ownership and control of social media giant TikTok to US buyers, critics are warning it could soon become a source of pro-Trump propaganda while giving right-wing oligarchs another powerful media mouthpiece.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal last week, the plan is to put TikTok’s US business under the control of a consortium that will include Oracle, as well as investment firm Silver Lake, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Oracle was founded by Larry Ellison, who was one of Trump’s first backers in Silicon Valley. Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andreessen donated US$2.5 million ($3.8 million) to Trump’s super PAC (political action committee) during the 2024 election campaign and he currently serves as an economic adviser to the President.

In addition to those two, right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and computer pioneer Michael Dell are also rumoured to be part of the consortium.

The idea of the world’s most popular video platform being under the control of billionaire Trump allies has set off alarms among critics who warn that it could be used to sway public opinion with a barrage of MAGA propaganda.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed to statements by Trump allies to warn that the TikTok deal could greatly damage the free flow of information in the US.

“If the concern had been that TikTok could be a conduit for Chinese government propaganda – a concern the Supreme Court declined to even consider – people can now be concerned that TikTok could be a conduit for US government propaganda,” EFF said.

“An administration official reportedly has said the new TikTok algorithm will be ‘retrained’ with US data to make sure the system is ‘behaving properly’.”

New Yorker journalist Clare Malone wrote in a recent article that “the supposed national-security concerns of TikTok will go largely unaddressed” under the proposed deal. She argued it would do more to “bolster an emerging media conglomerate, under the auspices of the Ellison family, who are assiduously friendly to Trump”.

To put this into perspective, wrote Malone, the Ellison family could soon “own a movie studio, multiple television streamers, two news networks, and have a significant stake in the world’s fastest-growing social-media platform, all while hosting the data of millions of users and providing much of the cloud-computing infrastructure that powers corporate America – a level of vertical integration that, even in an age of rapid consolidation, is unprecedented”.

Former US labor secretary Robert Reich also noted that TikTok wasn’t the only media platform being eyed by Ellison.

“[Ellison’s] media company owns CBS News and is plotting a bid for Warner Bros, which owns CNN,” he wrote. “When billionaires take control of communication platforms, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy.”

This major consolidation also caught the attention of former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who recently told The Hollywood Reporter that he had serious concerns about the Ellisons buying up his one-time employer, as well as potentially owning CNN as well.

“I do think … without preaching about it, but that we, all of us, all the Americans, have to be concerned about the consolidation of huge billionaires getting control of nearly all of the major news outlets,” Rather said.

“This is not healthy for the country, and it is something to worry about … It’s pretty hard to be optimistic about the possibilities of the Ellisons buying CNN.”

This article first appeared in Common Dreams. Read the original here