According to The Times of Israel, antisemitism at the company was “rampant” after the October 7 attacks, allowing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel content to increase on the platform. With reports that Palestinians resorted to TikTok for promoting their cause after platforms like Facebook and Twitter blocked their content, Israeli analyst Yoni Ben-Menachem called the app a “tool of dangerous influence” inciting violence against Israelis. In December 2022, with the United States experiencing a shortage as well, it was reported that the huge increase in demand for the medicine was caused by a weight loss trend on TikTok, where videos about the drug exceeded 360 million views.
In October 2022, TikTok was reported to be planning an expansion into the e-commerce market in the US, following the launch of TikTok Shop in the United Kingdom. In May 2021, TikTok appointed Shou Zi Chew as their new CEO who assumed the position from interim CEO Vanessa Pappas, following the resignation of Kevin A. Mayer on 27 August 2020. In the United States, Jimmy Fallon, Tony Hawk, and other celebrities began using the app in 2018.
Project Clover
It covers the “top 4% of all videos on TikTok” and is only available to creators with more than 100,000 followers. In October 2021, TikTok launched a test feature that allows users to directly tip certain creators. Private content remains visible to TikTok but is blocked from TikTok users who the account holder has not authorized to view their content. TikTok’s algorithm leverages this insight to present similar content, creating an environment that users often find hard to disengage from. While typical platforms focus on active user actions like likes, clicks, or follows, TikTok monitors a wider array of behaviors during video viewing.
UK Information Commissioner’s Office
On 22 January 2026, US President Donald Trump and TikTok announced that the company had joined a joint venture, which will run as an independent entity while operate under defined safeguards that protect national security for US users. A new subsidiary, TikTok US Data Security Inc. (USDS), was created to manage user data, software code, back-end systems, and content moderation. In response to security concerns of the United States government, TikTok has been working to silo privileged user data within the United States under oversight from the US government or a third party such as Oracle. In June 2022, BuzzFeed News reported that leaked audio recordings of internal TikTok meetings reveal employees in China had access to overseas data, including a “master admin” who could see “everything”. TikTok said it does not give information to China’s government and “US user data” is stored within the country with backups in Singapore. Lawmakers also “hammered” TikTok about whether consumer data could be turned over to the Chinese government through ByteDance, its parent company in China.
- In response, they began substituting words in their captions and videos and using filters to censor explicit images.
- Physical locations would be established so that Oracle and the US government could conduct their own reviews.
- TikTok’s geographical use in 2019 has shown that 43% of new users were from India before the social platform was banned in the country.
- In October 2020, the e-commerce platform Shopify added TikTok to its portfolio of social media platforms, allowing online merchants to sell their products directly to consumers on TikTok.
- In December 2021, TikTok started beta-testing Live Studio, a streaming software that would let users broadcast applications open on their computers, including games.
- With reports that Palestinians resorted to TikTok for promoting their cause after platforms like Facebook and Twitter blocked their content, Israeli analyst Yoni Ben-Menachem called the app a “tool of dangerous influence” inciting violence against Israelis.
More by TikTok Ltd.
- Furthermore, TikTok developed an in-app Electoral Center in partnership with the Central Electoral Commission of Moldova and worked with Reuters and the STOP FALS!
- If over 18, the user’s followers can send virtual “gifts” that can be later exchanged for money.
- Women’s apparel can roughly be divided into petite, straight, and plus sizes, leaving gaps in between.
- It was also the most-downloaded app on Apple’s App Store in 2018 and 2019, surpassing Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
- In March 2024, the Italian Competition Authority fined TikTok €10 million for not protecting underage users adequately from harmful content such as the “French scar” challenge, which left heavy pinch marks on a person’s cheeks.
- By July 2023, TikTok has become the primary news source for British teenagers on social media, with 28% of 12 to 15-year-olds relying on the platform, while traditional sources like BBC One/Two are more trusted at 82%, according to a report by UK regulator Ofcom.
- In August 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok tracked Android user data, including MAC addresses and IMEIs, with a tactic in violation of Google’s policies.
It also announced that US user traffic would now be routed through Oracle Cloud and that backup copies would be deleted from other servers. Following the reports, TikTok confirmed that employees in China could have access to US data. As a consequence, the Senate Intelligence Committee including US lawmakers Mark Warner and Marco Rubio called for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate ByteDance and whether TikTok had misled them.
According to computer security specialist Bruce Schneier, which company owns TikTok may not matter, as Russia had interfered in the 2016 US elections using Facebook without owning it. Data collected by TikTok and other social networks can already be purchased through other means. As of February 2023, at least 32 (of 50) states have announced or enacted bans on state government agencies, employees, and contractors using TikTok on government-issued devices. 7521, which would ban TikTok entirely unless it was divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Duets, a feature that allows users to add their own video to an existing video with the original content’s audio, have sparked many of these trends. In December 2021, TikTok started beta-testing Live Studio, a streaming software that would let users broadcast applications open on their computers, including games. Users can choose whether any other user, or only their “friends”, may interact with them through the app via comments, messages, or “react” or “duet” videos. The app’s “react” feature allows users to film their reaction to a specific video, over which it is placed in a small window that is movable around the screen.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
As of the first quarter of 2022, there were over 100 million monthly active users in the United States and 23 million in the UK. TikTok’s unique platform organization, of spontaneous peer-peer information sharing, has enabled its utilization for community-engaged, digital knowledge mobilization and exchange between social justice communities. In September 2024, TikTok removed the accounts of Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik.
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The company’s survey reported that nearly 50% of social media users find it stressful to watch a video longer than a minute and a third of users watch videos at double speed. Musical.ly was a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos, initially released in August 2014. Numerous social media users, including Americans, expressed their opposition to US foreign policy by sharing the resurfaced copies of the letter and its contents.
TikTok Studio
This led many creators to stop creating new content which they were not already contractually obligated to create. In December 2022, it was reported that a cosmetic surgery procedure known as buccal fat removal was going viral on the platform. TikTok has banned the advertising of cosmetic surgeries on the platform but cosmetic surgeons are still able to reach large audiences using unpaid photo and video posts. In April 2022, NBC News reported that surgeons were giving influencers on the platform discounted or free cosmetic surgeries in order to advertise the procedures to their audiences. By January 2021, the hashtag #nosejob had accumulated 1.6 billion views, #nosejobcheck had accumulated 1 billion views, and the audio used in the #NoseJobCheck trend had been used in 120,000 videos. Realistic videos about how differently pieces of garment fit on a model compared to how they fit on a typical consumer resonated with many who had believed that they were alone in their struggle.
In a November 2022 update to its European privacy policy, TikTok stated that its global corporate group employees from China and other countries could gain remote access to the user information of accounts from Europe based on “demonstrated need”. In June 2021, TikTok updated its privacy policy to include potential collection of biometric data, including “faceprints and voiceprints”, for special effects and other purposes. The company says that it employs access control and approval process overseen by a US-based team. In 2019, TikTok announced the #EduTok Mentorship program, a live workshop series in the Indian states of Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Jammu inspired by the hashtag #EduTok, in which video creators present factually for purposes of education. Some adult content creators have found a way to game TikTok’s recommendation algorithm by posting riddles, attracting a large number of viewers that struggled to solve them. In response, they began substituting words in their captions and videos and using filters to censor explicit images.
In March 2023, TikTok introduced a dedicated feed for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content. Creators who posted saying that they would not be changing their content, such as Green, were met with significant criticism. These creators would often attend red carpet premieres of movies and interview the celebrities in attendance, which was the subject of significant debate as some considered the questions the creators asked to be disrespectful. However, as reported by The New York Times, these people often do not see themselves necessarily as film critics. The procedure involves surgically removing fat from the cheeks in order to give the face a slimmer and more chiseled appearance.
In June 2021, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order revoking the Trump administration ban on TikTok, and instead ordered the Secretary of Commerce to investigate the app to determine if it poses a threat to US national security. In January 2020, the United States Army and Navy banned TikTok on government devices after the Defense Department labeled it a security risk. An analysis estimated that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, could gain between $2.46 billion and $3.38 billion in advertising revenue if TikTok were banned.
To combat misinformation in the 2022 midterm election in the US, TikTok announced a midterms Elections Center available in-app to users in 40 different languages. It reported that in the second half of 2020, over 340,000 videos in the US about election misinformation and 50,000 videos of COVID-19 misinformation were removed. In ruhtinas April 2020, the government of India asked TikTok to remove users posting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. TikTok responded by taking down videos with content that violated their community guidelines.