Have you ever been scrolling through TikTok and seen a video about something you just talked about with a friend? It feels like your phone is literally reading your brain—but the truth is actually way beyond that. It seems like social media platforms have the ability to guess your interests to trap you in the app. For TikTok, however, the app goes beyond your activity within the platform to push appealing content. This has become more widely known ever since Oracle, a widely known American media corporation, took over TikTok in early 2026, and digging deeper can lead to finding some mind-breaking discoveries. 

After TikTok was sold to Oracle, they immediately forced all users to agree to a new privacy policy to use personal information to, according to their claims, improve the user experience. It allowed for precise GPS tracking, instantly tracking the location of you or your peers, and the collection of sensitive personal info like immigration status and religious beliefs. Most users mindlessly checked off the “I agree to the Terms and Conditions” box and did not even realize that they had jumped into the so-called privacy trap. People do not want to offer their personal information for a slight boost of dopamine levels while doom-scrolling. This was a greater issue internationally, considering that the algorithm was already suspected to be leaning towards using American user behavior to function, making people believe that Oracle would be using the information for alternative purposes.

Additionally, some users have noticed that the “For You” page algorithm has been messed up by Oracle’s changes. The app is so focused on predicting your deepest interests that it can sometimes lead you into a “rabbit hole.” This is when the algorithm gets a little too intense and starts showing you the same thing over and over again. Amnesty International has found out “TikTok’s ‘For You’ page are quickly being drawn into ‘rabbit holes’ of potentially harmful content, including videos that romanticize and encourage depressive thinking, self-harm and suicide.” Since the system only cares about keeping you in the app, it can start pushing harmful content like extreme dieting, drugs, or abuse, simply because it calculated that those videos are likely to hook you into scrolling more. “Between 3 and 20 minutes into our manual research, more than half of the videos in the ‘For You’ feed were related to mental health struggles with multiple recommended videos in a single hour romanticizing, normalizing or encouraging suicide.” 

At the end of the day, algorithms seem like they’re just math equations that react to you. Every time you scroll, pause, or skip, it is another hint for the app to learn your interests. However, it seems that TikTok’s algorithm has become especially daunting after Oracle took over. More people are losing trust in the platform, while many don’t even realize they agreed to terms that allow the app to invade their privacy. Algorithmic traps have always been bad, but the Oracle takeover has turned TikTok into something worse than just addictive entertainment. It has become an app that steals your personal information without your knowledge, while leading you into rabbit holes and topics that could be seriously harmful to your mental health and wellbeing.