TikTok

Douyin was launched by ByteDance in China in September 2016, originally under the name A.me, before rebranding to Douyin in December 2016.[19][20] ByteDance planned on Douyin expanding overseas. The founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, stated that "China is home to only one-fifth of Internet users globally. If we don’t expand on a global scale, we are bound to lose to peers eyeing the four-fifths. So, going global is a must."[21] Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.[22][23] TikTok was launched in the international market in September 2017.[24] On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked No. 1 among free app downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries.[25]

TikTok has been downloaded more than 80 million times in the United States, and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide[26], according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower that excludes Android users in China.[27] Many celebrities including Jimmy Fallon and Tony Hawk began using the application in 2018.[28][29] Other celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Will Smith, and Justin Bieber joined TikTok as well and many other celebrities have followed.[30]

On 3 September 2019, TikTok and the US National Football League (NFL) announced a multi-year partnership.[31] The agreement occurred just two days shy of the NFL's 100th season kick off at the Soldier stadium, where TikTok hosted activities for fans in honor of the deal. The partnership entails the launch of an official NFL TikTok account which will bring about new marketing opportunities such as sponsored videos and hashtag challenges.

On 9 November 2017, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, spent up to $1 billion to purchase musical.ly, a startup based in Shanghai with an office in Santa Monica, California.[32][33] Musical.ly was a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos, initially released in August 2014. It was well known, especially to the younger audience. Looking forward to leveraging the US digital platform's young user base, TikTok merged with musical.ly on August 2, 2018 to create a larger video community, with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok. This ended musical.ly and made TikTok a world-wide app, excluding China, since China has Douyin.[33][34][35]

As of 2018, TikTok has been made available in over 150 markets, and in 75 languages.[36][37] TikTok was downloaded more than 104 million times on Apple's App store during the full first half of 2018, according to data provided to CNBC by Sensor Tower. It surpassed Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to become the world's most downloaded iOS app.[38][39]

As a separate app from TikTok, Douyin is available from the developer's website. The app can only be downloaded in China and has a slightly older audience than TikTok, as their user base ranges from children to middle-aged adults. The app uses two different types of verification, an influencer personal verification similar to that of TikTok and a business verification requiring a licence and yearly fee. Business verified users can promote to a specific audience, which allows them to choose where they want their video to be seen, such as a specific physical location. Douyin also has its own store, in which users can tag and advertise their products, and users can request to work with an influencer for brand deals.[40] Part of the app's popularity has been attributed to its marketing campaigns that launched several activities with Chinese celebrities to engage their fans' interest.[41]

TikTok employs artificial intelligence to analyze users' interests and preferences through their interactions with the content, and display a personalized content feed for each user.[55][56] TikTok has an algorithm in which they process the user's preferences based on the videos they "like", comment on, and also how long they watch the video. Compared to other consumer algorithms such as YouTube and Netflix with a list of recommended videos, TikTok interprets the user's individual preferences and provides content that they would enjoy.[57]

There are a variety of trends within TikTok, including memes, lip-synced songs, and comedy videos. Duets, a feature that allows users to add their own video to an existing video with the original content's audio, have sparked most of these trends.

Trends are shown on TikTok's explore page or the page with the search logo. The page enlists the trending hashtags and challenges among the app. Some include #posechallenge, #filterswitch, #dontjudgemechallenge, #homedecor, #hitormiss, #bottlecapchallenge and more. In June 2019, the company introduced the hash tag #EduTok which received 37 billion views. Following this development the company initiated partnerships with edtech start ups to create educational content on the platform.[58]

The app has spawned numerous viral trends, internet celebrities, and music trends around the world.[59] Many stars got their start on musical.ly, which turned into the global platform known as TikTok on August 2, 2018. These users include Loren Gray, Baby Ariel, Kristen Hancher, Zach King, Lisa and Lena, Jacob Sartorius, and many others. Loren Gray remained the most-followed individual on TikTok until Charli D’Amelio surpassed her on March 25, 2020. Loren was the first TikTok account to reach 40 million followers on the platform, and Charli was the first with 60 million.

Charli D'Amelio started her career on TikTok and currently is the most-followed individual on the platform, with more than 62 million followers.[60] Charli D’Amelio rose to fame after duetting another TikTok user that went viral. She is also well known for performing a dance called "The Renegade," to the song "Lottery" by K CAMP. D’Amelio was part of the Hype House, a mansion in Los Angeles with a group of TikTok stars. The Hype House was founded by Daisy Keech, Chase Hudson, Alex Warren, Kouvr Annon, and Thomas Petrou in 2019.[61] Charli D’Amelio and her sister Dixie D'Amelio reportedly left the Hype House, along with Daisy Keech and Addison Rae. Current members of the Hype House are Chase Hudson, Connor Yates, Alex Warren, Avani Gregg, Wyatt Xavier, Ryland Storms, Nick Austin, Ondreaz Lopez, Tony Lopez, Kouvr Annon, Thomas Petrou, Calvin Goldby, James Wright, Jack Wright and Patrick Huston.[62]

Aside from "The Renegade" that had over 29.7 million videos, a notable TikTok trend is the "hit or miss", from a snippet of iLOVEFRiDAY's "Mia Khalifa" (2018), which has been used in over four million TikTok videos. This song helped introduce the app to a larger Western audience.[63][64] Other songs that have gained popularity because of their success on the app include "Roxanne" by Arizona Zervas, "Lalala" by bbno$, "Stupid" by Ashnikko, "Yellow Hearts" by Ant Saunders, "Say So" by Doja Cat, "Truth Hurts" by Lizzo, “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion, and “Play Date” by Melanie Martinez. TikTok played a major part in making "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X become one of the biggest songs of 2019, and the longest running #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.[65][66][67][68][69]

TikTok has allowed bands to get notoriety in places all around the globe. The band Fitz and The Tantrums has developed a large following in South Korea despite never having toured in Asia.[70] "Any Song" by R&B and rap artist Zico became number 1 on the Korean music charts due to the popularity of the #anysongchallenge, where users dance the choreography of "Any Song". The song was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 17 weeks, breaking the record for the longest time a song was number 1 on the charts.[71] After his song "Old Town Road" went viral on the app, Lil Nas X received a record deal and the song rose to the top of the Billboard charts. The platform has received some criticism for its lack of royalties towards artists whose music is used on their platform.[64] There is controversy over whether or not this type of promotion is beneficial in the long run for artists since it seems to play as a "one-hit wonder".

In June 2020, TikTok users and K-pop fans "claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets" for President Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa through communication on TikTok[72], contributing to "rows of empty seats"[73] at the event.

TikTok has banned holocaust denial, but other conspiracy theories have become popular on the platform, such as Pizzagate and QAnon (two conspiracy theories popular among the US alt-right) whose hashtags reached almost 80 million views and 50 million views respectively by June 2020.[74] The platform has also been used to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, such as clips from the Plandemic video.[74] TikTok removed some of these videos, and has generally added links to accurate COVID-19 information on videos with tags related to the pandemic.[75]

In the three years after it launched in September 2016, TikTok acquired 800 million active users.[76] Its users include the likes of Zach King, Loren Gray, Baby Ariel, Lisa and Lena, Will Smith, Dwayne Johnson, Brent Rivera, Addison Rae, Jason Derulo, Jennifer Lopez, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez, and Charli D'Amelio, the most-followed individual on the platform.

In the United States, 52% of TikTok users are iPhone users. While TikTok has a neutral gender-bias format, 44% of TikTok users are female while 56% are male.[76] TikTok's geographical use has shown that 43% of new users are from India.[77] TikTok has proven to attract the younger generation, as 41% of its users are between the ages of 16 and 24. Among these TikTok users, 90% say they use the app on a daily basis.[78] As of May 2020, there are 30 million monthly active users in the United States alone.[79]

As of July 2018, TikTok users spend an average of 52 minutes a day on the app, and 9 out of 10 users claim to use TikTok on a daily basis.[76]

Similar to other platforms,[81] journalists in several countries have raised privacy concerns about the app, because it is popular with children and has the potential to be used by sexual predators.[81][82][83][84]

Several users have reported endemic cyberbullying on TikTok,[85][86] including racism.[87] In December 2019, following a report by German digital rights group Netzpolitik.org, TikTok admitted that it had suppressed videos by disabled users as well as LGBTQ+ users in a purported effort to limit cyberbullying.[88][89] TikTok moderators were also told to suppress users with "abnormal body shape,” "ugly facial looks,” "too many wrinkles,” or in "slums, rural fields” and "dilapidated housing” to prevent bullying.[90]

In addition, some users may find it hard to stop using TikTok.[91] In April 2018, an addiction-reduction feature was added to Douyin.[91] This encouraged users to take a break every 90 minutes.[91] Later in 2018, the feature was rolled out to the TikTok app. TikTok uses some of the top influencers such as Gabe Erwin, Alan Chikin Chow, James Henry, and Cosette Rinab to encourage viewers to stop using the app and take a break.[92]

Many were also concerned with users' attention spans with these videos. Users watch short 15-second clips repeatedly and studies say that this could report to a decrease in attention span. This is a concern as many of TikTok's audience is younger children, where their brain is still developing.[93]

Privacy concerns have also been brought up regarding the app.[94][95] In its privacy policy, TikTok lists that it collects usage information, IP addresses, a user's mobile carrier, unique device identifiers, keystroke patterns, and location data, among other data.[96][97] Web developers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk claimed that allowing videos and other content being shared by the app's users through HTTP puts the users' data privacy at risk.[98]

In January 2020, Check Point Research discovered a security flaw in TikTok which could have allowed hackers access to user accounts using SMS.[99] In February, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman criticised the app, calling it "spyware," and stating "I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it's always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone."[100][101] Responding to Huffman's comments, TikTok stated "These are baseless accusations made without a shred of evidence."[96]

In May 2020, the Dutch Data Protection Authority announced an investigation into TikTok in relation to privacy protections for children.[102][103] In June 2020, the European Data Protection Board announced that it would assemble a task force to examine TikTok's user privacy and security practices.[104]

In January 2019, an investigation by the American think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics described TikTok as a "Huawei-sized problem" that posed a national security threat to the West,[105][106] noting the app's popularity with Western users. They included armed forces personnel and its alleged ability to convey location, image and biometric data to its Chinese parent company, which is legally unable to refuse to share data with the Chinese government under the China Internet Security Law.[106] Observers have also noted that ByteDance's founder and CEO Zhang Yiming issued a letter in 2018 stating that his company would "further deepen cooperation" with Communist Party of China authorities to promote their policies.[107] TikTok's parent company ByteDance claims that TikTok is not available in China and its data is stored outside of China, but its privacy policy has reserved the right to share any information with Chinese authorities.[108] In response to national security, censorship, and anti-boycott compliance concerns, in October 2019, Senator Marco Rubio asked the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to open an investigation into TikTok and its parent company ByteDance.[109][110] The same month, senators Tom Cotton and Chuck Schumer sent a joint letter to the Director of National Intelligence requesting a security review of TikTok and its parent company.[111][112]

In November 2019, it was reported that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States opened an investigation into ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly.[113] The same month, following a request by Senator Chuck Schumer, U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy agreed to assess the risks of using TikTok as a recruitment tool.[114][115] Senator Josh Hawley introduced the National Security and Personal Data Protection Act to prohibit TikTok's parent company and others from transferring personal data of Americans to China.[116] Senator Josh Hawley also introduced a bill to ban downloading and using TikTok on government devices because of national security concerns. In December 2019, the United States Navy as well as the U.S. Army banned TikTok from all government-issued devices.[117][118][119] The Transportation Security Administration also prohibited its personnel from posting on the platform for outreach purposes.[120][121] Following its prohibition by the U.S. military, the Australian Defence Force also banned TikTok on its devices.[122] Legislation was subsequently introduced in the U.S. Senate that would prohibit all federal employees from using or downloading TikTok.[123]

On 3 July 2018, TikTok was banned in Indonesia after the Indonesian government accused it of promulgating "pornography, inappropriate content and blasphemy."[124][125][126][107][127] Shortly afterwards, TikTok pledged to task 20 staff with censoring TikTok content in Indonesia,[125] and the ban was lifted 8 days later.[124]

In November 2018, the Bangladeshi government blocked the TikTok app's internet access, even though TikTok had no connection to the reason for ban, which was pornography and gambling[128]

Also in 2018, Douyin was reprimanded by Chinese media watchdogs for showing "unacceptable" content, such as videos depicting adolescent pregnancies.[127]

In January 2019, the Chinese government said that it would start to hold app developers like ByteDance responsible for user content shared via apps such as Douyin,[129] and listed 100 types of content that the Chinese government would censor.[130] It was reported that certain content unfavorable to the Communist Party of China has already been limited for users outside of China such as content related to the 2019 Hong Kong protests.[131][132] TikTok has blocked videos about human rights in China, particularly those that reference Xinjiang re-education camps and abuses of ethnic and religious minorities, and disabled the accounts of users who post them.[133][134][135] TikTok's policies also ban content related to a specific list of foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Mahatma Gandhi because it can stir controversy and attacks on political views.[136] Its policies also ban content critical of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and content considered pro-Kurdish.[137] TikTok was reported to have censored users supportive of the Citizenship Amendment Act protests and those who promote Hindu-Muslim unity.[138]

In February 2019, several Indian politicians called for TikTok to be banned or more tightly regulated, after concerns emerged about sexually explicit content, cyberbullying, and deepfakes. They called it a "cultural degeneration".[90]

In countries where LGBT discrimination is the socio-political norm, TikTok moderators have blocked content that could be perceived as being positive towards LGBT people or LGBT rights, including same-sex couples holding hands, including in countries where homosexuality has never been illegal.[137][139] TikTok worked to create an environment in which their audience is comfortable and enjoy what they are watching. Former U.S. employees of TikTok reported to The Washington Post that final decisions to remove content were made by parent company employees in Beijing.[140]

In response to censorship concerns, TikTok's parent company hired K&L Gates, including former Congressmen Bart Gordon and Jeff Denham, to advise it on its content moderation policies.[141][142] TikTok also hired lobbying firm Monument Advocacy.[143]

In June 2020, The Times of India reported that TikTok was "shadow-banning" videos related to the Sino-Indian border dispute and the 2020 China–India skirmishes.[144]

In 2019, TikTok removed about two dozen accounts that were responsible of posting ISIS propaganda on the app.[145][146]

On 27 November 2019, TikTok temporarily suspended the account of 17-year-old Afghan-American user Feroza Aziz after she posted a video, disguised as a makeup tutorial, drawing attention to the internment camps of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China.[147] TikTok later apologized and claimed that her account was suspended as a result of human error, and her account has since been reinstated.[148]

In January 2020, Media Matters for America claimed that TikTok hosted misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic despite a recent policy against misinformation.[149] In April 2020, the government of India asked TikTok to remove users posting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic.[150] Some of the misinformation that was given were that the coronavirus is not as bad as claimed. There were also multiple conspiracy theories that the government is involved with the spread of the pandemic.[151] As a response to this, TikTok launched a feature to report content for misinformation.[152]

In March 2020, internal documents leaked to The Intercept revealed that moderators had been instructed to suppress posts created by users deemed "too ugly, poor, or disabled" for the platform, and to censor political speech in livestreams, punishing those who harmed "national honor" or broadcast streams about "state organs such as police" with bans from the platform.[89][153] In June 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that some previously non-political TikTok users were airing pro-Beijing views for the explicit purpose of boosting subscribers and avoiding "shadow" bans.[154]

Indonesia temporarily blocked the TikTok app on 3 July 2018 amid public concern about illegal content such as pornography and blasphemy that is not good for the youth. The app was unblocked one week later after TikTok negotiated, making various changes, including removing negative content, opening a government liaison office, and implementing age restrictions as well as security mechanisms.[155][156][157]

Tencent's WeChat platform has been accused of blocking Douyin's videos.[158][159] In April 2018, Douyin sued Tencent and accused it of spreading false and damaging information on its WeChat platform, demanding CNY one million in compensation and an apology. In June 2018, Tencent filed a lawsuit against Toutiao and Douyin in a Beijing court, alleging they had repeatedly defamed Tencent with negative news and damaged its reputation, seeking a nominal sum of CNY 1 in compensation and a public apology.[160] In response, Toutiao filed a complaint the following day against Tencent for allegedly unfair competition and asking for CNY 90 million in economic losses.[161]

On 27 February 2019, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined ByteDance US $5.7 million for collecting information from minors under the age of 13 in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.[162] ByteDance responded by adding a kids-only mode to TikTok which blocks the upload of videos, the building of user profiles, direct messaging, and commenting on other's videos, while still allowing the viewing and recording of content.[163] In May 2020, an advocacy group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission claiming that TikTok had violated the terms of the February 2019 consent decree, which sparked subsequent Congressional calls for a renewed FTC investigation.[164][165][166][167]

On 3 April 2019, the Madras High Court while hearing a PIL had asked the Government of India to ban the app, citing that it "encourages pornography" and shows "inappropriate content". The court also noted that children and minors using the app were at risk of being targeted by sexual predators. The court further asked broadcast media not to telecast any of those videos from the app. The spokesperson for TikTok stated that they were abiding by local laws and were awaiting the copy of the court order before they take action.[168] On 17 April, both Google and Apple removed TikTok from Google Play and the App Store.[169] As the court refused to reconsider the ban, the company stated that they had removed over 6 million videos that violated their content policy and guidelines.[170]

On 25 April 2019, the ban was lifted after a court in Tamil Nadu reversed its order of prohibiting downloads of the app from the App Store and Google Play, following a plea from TikTok developer Bytedance Technology.[171][172] India's TikTok ban might have cost the app 15 million new users.[173] Yet as of 2020, the number of Indian users have increased and now Indian head of TikTok Nikhil Gandhi expects that TikTok will at least grow by 50% by the end of 2020.[174]

In November 2019, a class action lawsuit was filed in California that alleged that TikTok transferred personally-identifiable information of U.S. persons to servers located in China owned by Tencent and Alibaba.[175][176][177] The lawsuit also accused ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, of taking user content without their permission. The plaintiff of the lawsuit, college student Misty Hong, downloaded the app but claimed she never created an account. She realized a few months later that TikTok has created an account for her using her information (such as biometric) and made a summary of her information. The lawsuit also alleged that information was sent to Chinese tech giant Baidu.[178]