Key parts of the prediction are only partly observable by November 30, 2025, and the long‑run effects it specifies (“over the ensuing years”) have not yet played out.

1. Forced divestiture to an independent owner
   – In April 2024, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) was signed, requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations or face a ban.(en.wikipedia.org)
   – The Supreme Court upheld this law in TikTok, Inc. v. Garland in January 2025, allowing the divestiture/bannng regime to take effect.(snopes.com)
   – In September 2025, President Trump issued an executive order deeming a divestiture plan a “qualified divestiture” under PAFACA and extending enforcement deadlines, with an Oracle–Silver Lake–led consortium expected to control ~80% of TikTok’s U.S. operations, leaving ByteDance with <20%. Oracle is not an incumbent consumer social‑media platform like Meta, Alphabet, Snap, etc., so this structure matches “an owner independent from the existing major US social platforms.”(reuters.com)
   – However, as of late November 2025 TikTok is still “in the process of divesting about 80% of its U.S. assets” and operating under transitional arrangements; the transaction and full restructuring are not yet complete.(reuters.com)

2. Increased regulatory scrutiny of recommendation algorithms
   – PAFACA and subsequent litigation and rule‑making have focused explicitly on foreign control, data access and potential content manipulation via TikTok’s recommendation systems. Court opinions and commentary repeatedly frame TikTok’s algorithm as a national‑security and information‑integrity risk.(reuters.com)
   – Trump’s 2025 executive order and related analyses describe the settlement conditions as requiring “intense monitoring of software updates, algorithms, and data flows” and that “all recommendation models…must be retrained and monitored” by U.S. “trusted security partners” (with Oracle commonly named), which is a direct, formal regulatory intervention into how TikTok’s recommender works.(internetgovernance.org)
   – This clearly shows heightened U.S. governmental focus on at least one major recommender system (TikTok US). But whether this will translate into a durable, system‑wide shift in how all large‑scale social‑media algorithms are regulated is still uncertain.

3. “Greater competitive diversity” among large‑scale social‑media algorithms
   – Available reporting describes the ownership and governance deal (Oracle/Silver Lake consortium, separate U.S.-only app and algorithm, retraining with U.S. data, U.S. data residency, etc.), but does not yet provide clear empirical evidence that this has produced greater competitive diversity in the broader social‑media algorithm landscape (e.g., a sustained increase in the number or distinctiveness of competing large‑scale recommendation systems, or structural weakening of Meta/Alphabet’s positions) attributable to the divestiture.(reuters.com)
   – Competing short‑video algorithms (Reels, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat Spotlight, etc.) were already in place before PAFACA and the 2025 divestiture framework, and no current sources show a clear, causally linked market‑structure change that can be credited to the TikTok divestiture rather than to ongoing competition and prior trends. This absence of evidence makes the “greater competitive diversity” part of the prediction impossible to verify at this time.

4. Timing (“over the ensuing years”)
   – The podcast was released in September 2025, and as of November 30, 2025, only a little over a year and a half has passed since PAFACA became law and just a couple of months since the divestiture framework was formally approved. The new U.S. TikTok entity is expected to testify before Congress in 2026, and its U.S‑only algorithm and governance model are still being implemented.(reuters.com)
   – Because the prediction explicitly speaks about changes “over the ensuing years,” and the key structural changes (new ownership, new algorithm, ongoing oversight) are still mid‑transition, there has not yet been enough time to measure the long‑run systemic impact on regulatory practice and market diversity.

Given: (a) the divestiture is in progress but not fully completed; (b) regulatory scrutiny of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm has clearly intensified but system‑wide effects are not yet knowable; and (c) there is no solid evidence yet of increased overall competitive diversity in large‑scale social‑media algorithms, the most reasonable classification as of November 30, 2025 is “inconclusive (too early)” rather than clearly right or wrong.