TikTok (app)

TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. It can be accessed through a mobile app or through its website.

Since its launch, TikTok has become one of the world's most popular social media platforms, using recommendation algorithms to connect content creators and influencers with new audiences. In April 2020, TikTok surpassed two billion mobile downloads worldwide. Cloudflare ranked TikTok the most popular website of 2021, surpassing Google. The popularity of TikTok has allowed viral trends in food, fashion, and music to take off and increase the platform's cultural impact worldwide.

TikTok has come under scrutiny due to data privacy violations, mental health concerns, misinformation, offensive content, and its role during the Gaza war. Countries have fined, banned, or attempted to restrict TikTok to protect children or out of national security concerns over possible user data collection by the government of China through ByteDance.

Corporate structure

TikTok Ltd was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean and is based in both Singapore and Los Angeles. It owns four entities which are based respectively in the United States, Australia (which also runs the New Zealand business), United Kingdom (also owns subsidiaries in the European Union), and Singapore (owns operations in Southeast Asia and India).

Its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, is owned by founders and Chinese investors, other global investors, and employees. One of ByteDance's main domestic subsidiaries is owned by Chinese state funds and entities through a 1% golden share. Employees have reported that multiple overlaps exist between TikTok and ByteDance in terms of personnel management and product development. TikTok says that since 2020, its US-based CEO is responsible for making important decisions, and has downplayed its China connection.

History

Douyin

Douyin was launched on September 20, 2016, by ByteDance, originally under the name ''A.me'', before rebranding to Douyin () in December 2016. Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.

While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately. Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people's faces for more videos of them, along with other features such as buying, booking hotels, and making geo-tagged reviews.

TikTok

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.”

ByteDance created TikTok as an overseas version of Douyin. TikTok was launched in the international market in September 2017. On 9 November 2017, ByteDance spent nearly $1 billion to purchase Musical.ly, a startup headquartered in Shanghai with an overseas office in Santa Monica, California. Musical.ly was a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos, initially released in August 2014. TikTok merged with Musical.ly on 2 August 2018 with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok.

On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked first among free application downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries. TikTok has been downloaded more than 130 million times in the United States and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide, according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower (those numbers exclude Android users in China).

In the United States, Jimmy Fallon, Tony Hawk, and other celebrities began using the app in 2018. Other celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Will Smith, and Justin Bieber joined TikTok. In January 2019, TikTok allowed creators to embed merchandise sale links into their videos. On 3 September 2019, TikTok and the U.S. National Football League (NFL) announced a multi-year partnership. The agreement came just two days before the NFL's 100th season kick-off at Soldier Field in Chicago where TikTok hosted activities for fans in honor of the deal. The partnership entails the launch of an official NFL TikTok account, which is to bring about new marketing opportunities such as sponsored videos and hashtag challenges. In July 2020, TikTok, excluding Douyin, reported close to 800 million monthly active users worldwide after less than four years of existence.

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 September 2021, TikTok reported that it had reached 1 billion users. In 2021, TikTok earned $4 billion in advertising revenue.

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. The company posted job listings for staff for a series of order fulfillment centers in the U.S. and is reportedly planning to start the new live shopping business before the end of the year. The ''Financial Times'' reported that TikTok will launch a video gaming channel, but the report was denied in a statement to Digiday, with TikTok instead aiming to be a social hub for the gaming community. According to data from app analytics group Sensor Tower, advertising on TikTok in the U.S. grew by 11% in March 2023, with companies including Pepsi, DoorDash, Amazon, and Apple among the top spenders. According to estimates from research group Insider Intelligence, TikTok is projected to generate $14.15 billion in revenue in 2023, up from $9.89 billion in 2022. In March 2024, ''The'' ''Wall Street Journal'' reported that TikTok's growth in the U.S. had stagnated.

Since at least 2020, following calls to ban TikTok in the country, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has been investigating the company's 2017 merger with Musical.ly but has not finalized any of its negotiations with TikTok, such as the Project Texas proposal, waiting instead for Congress to act.

In January 2025, Chinese officials began preliminary talks about potentially selling TikTok's U.S. operations to Elon Musk if the app faced an impending ban due to national security concerns. While Beijing preferred TikTok remain under ByteDance's control, the sale could happen through a competitive process or with U.S. government involvement. One possibility involved Musk's platform, X, taking over TikTok's U.S. business. The move came ahead of a Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of a law that would force a sale or ban of TikTok in the U.S. by 19 January 2025, due to national security concerns regarding its ties to China. Other potential buyers included Project Liberty's "The People’s Bid For TikTok" consortium of billionaire real estate mogul Frank McCourt with Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary; former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin; YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) and former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick; the seriousness of these potential buyers was unclear. The day before the impending ban, California-based conversational search engine company Perplexity AI submitted a bid for a merger with TikTok US.

Expansion in other markets

TikTok was downloaded over 104 million times on Apple's App Store during the first half of 2018, according to data provided to CNBC by Sensor Tower.

After merging with musical.ly in August, downloads increased and TikTok became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018, which musical.ly had done once before. In February 2019, TikTok, together with Douyin, hit one billion downloads globally, excluding Android installs in China. In 2019, media outlets cited TikTok as the 7th-most-downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2010 to 2019. It was also the most-downloaded app on Apple's App Store in 2018 and 2019, surpassing Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. In September 2020, a deal was confirmed between ByteDance and Oracle in which the latter will serve as a partner to provide cloud hosting. In November 2020, TikTok signed a licensing deal with Sony Music. In December 2020, Warner Music Group signed a licensing deal with TikTok.

The advertising revenue of short video clips is lower than other social media: while users spend more time, American audience is monetized at a rate of $0.31 per hour, a third the rate of Facebook and a fifth the rate of Instagram, $67 per year while Instagram will make more than $200. In July 2023, Iranian Mehr News Agency reported "experts from Douyin" will meet Iranian business in Tehran to enable Iranian exports to China.

In 2023, several high-level executives transferred from ByteDance to TikTok to focus on moneymaking operations. Some moved from Beijing to the US. According to sources for ''The'' ''Wall Street Journal'', the personnel move led to concerns from some TikTok employees and was reported to the office of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz for further investigation. In December 2023, TikTok invested $1.5 billion in GoTo's Indonesian e-commerce business, Tokopedia. In March 2024, '' The Information'' reported that it is an open secret among investors that TikTok loses billions of dollar annually.

Competition with other platforms

Although the size of its user base falls short of that of Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, TikTok reached 1 billion active monthly users faster than any of them. Competition from TikTok prompted Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, to spend $120 million as of 2022 to entice more content creators to its Reels service, although engagement level remained low. Snapchat had likewise paid out $250 million in 2021 to its creators. Many platforms and services, including YouTube Shorts, began to imitate TikTok's format and recommendation page. Those changes caused a backlash from users of Instagram, Spotify, and Twitter.

In March 2022, ''The'' ''Washington Post'' reported that Facebook's owner Meta Platforms paid Targeted Victory—a consulting firm backed by supporters of the U.S. Republican Party—to coordinate lobbying and media campaigns against TikTok and portray it as "a danger to American children and society". Its efforts included asking local reporters to serve as "back channels" of anti-TikTok messages, writing opinion articles and letters to the editor, including one in the name of a concerned parent, amplifying stories about TikTok trends, such as "devious licks" and "Slap a Teacher", that actually originated on Facebook, and promoting Facebook's own corporate initiatives. Ties to Meta were not disclosed to the other parties involved. Targeted Victory said that it is "proud of the work". A Meta spokesperson said that all platforms, including TikTok, should face scrutiny.

''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that Silicon Valley executives met with U.S. lawmakers to build an "anti-China alliance" before TikTok CEO's congressional hearing in March 2023.

TikTok Notes

In April 2024, TikTok users started receiving notifications that their current and future picture posts would be shown on a new app called TikTok Notes. The app is not released yet; however, TikTok confirmed it is being worked on. TikTok Notes will be a direct competitor to Instagram for photo sharing. Jasmine Enberg, a principal social media analyst at eMarketer, observes that launching Notes as a separate app, instead of as a new feature in TikTok, may be done in response to regulatory and consumer scrutiny. On 18 April, Notes first released to users in Canada and Australia for limited testing. On 1 April, it was announced that Notes would be shut down on 8 May.

Features

The mobile app allows users to create short videos, which often feature music in the background and can be sped up, slowed down, or edited with a filter. They can also add their own sound on top of the background music. To create a music video with the app, users can choose background music from a wide variety of music genres, edit with a filter and record a 15-second video with speed adjustments before uploading it to share with others on TikTok or other social platforms. The "For You" page on TikTok is a feed of videos that are recommended to users based on their activity on the app. Content is curated by TikTok's artificial intelligence depending on the content a user liked, interacted with, or searched. This helps users find new content and creators reach new audiences, in contrast to other social networks that base recommendations on the interactions and relationships between users.

TikTok's algorithm, recognized by ''The New York Times'' in 2020 as one of the most advanced for shaping user experiences and social interactions, stands out from traditional social media. While typical platforms focus on active user actions like likes, clicks, or follows, TikTok monitors a wider array of behaviors during video viewing. This comprehensive observation is then used to refine its algorithms, as noted by ''Wired'' in 2020. Furthermore, ''The Wall Street Journal'' in 2021 highlighted its superiority over other social media platforms in understanding users' preferences and emotions. TikTok's algorithm leverages this insight to present similar content, creating an environment that users often find hard to disengage from.

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. Its "duet" feature allows users to film a video aside from another video. The "duet" feature was another trademark of musical.ly. The duet feature is also only able to be used if both parties adjust the privacy settings.

Videos that users do not want to post yet can be stored in their "drafts". The user is allowed to see their "drafts" and post when they find it fitting.

The app allows users to set their accounts as "private". When first downloading the app, the user's account is public by default. The user can change to private in their settings. Private content remains visible to TikTok but is blocked from TikTok users who the account holder has not authorized to view their content. 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. Users also can set specific videos to either "public", "friends only", or "private" regardless if the account is private or not.

Users may send their friends videos, emojis, and messages with direct messaging. TikTok has also included a feature to create a video based on the user's comments. Influencers often use the "live" feature. This feature is only available for those who have at least 1,000 followers and are over 16 years old. If over 18, the user's followers can send virtual "gifts" that can be later exchanged for money.

TikTok announced a "family safety mode" in February 2020 for parents to be able to control their children's presence on the app. There is a screen time management option, restricted mode, and the option to put a limit on direct messages. The app expanded its parental controls feature called "Family Pairing" in September 2020 to provide parents and guardians with educational resources to understand what children on TikTok are exposed to. Content for the feature was created in partnership with online safety nonprofit, Internet Matters.

In October 2021, TikTok launched a test feature that allows users to directly tip certain creators. Accounts of users that are of age, have at least 100,000 followers and agree to the terms can activate a "Tip" button on their profile, which allows followers to tip any amount, starting from $1. In December 2021, TikTok started beta-testing Live Studio, a streaming software that would let users broadcast applications open on their computers, including games. The software also launched with support for mobile and PC streaming. However, a few days later, users on Twitter discovered that the software uses code from the open-source OBS Studio. OBS made a statement saying that, under the GNU GPL version 2, TikTok has to make the code of Live Studio publicly available if it wants to use any code from OBS.

In May 2022, TikTok announced TikTok Pulse, an ad revenue-sharing program. It covers the "top 4% of all videos on TikTok" and is only available to creators with more than 100,000 followers. If an eligible creator's video reaches the top 4%, they will receive a 50% share of the revenue from ads displayed with the video. In July 2023, TikTok launched a new streaming service called TikTok Music, currently available only in Brazil and Indonesia. This service allows users to listen to, download and share songs. It is reported that TikTok Music features songs from major record companies like Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group. On 19 July 2023, TikTok Music was expanded for select users in Australia, Mexico and Singapore.

After a dispute with TikTok regarding payouts for artists and regulation of AI-generated music content on the platform, Universal Music Group decided not to renew its licensing agreement with TikTok, causing its catalogue of 3 million recordings to become unavailable for usage after 31 January 2024. This marked the company's first instance of withdrawing its music from a major platform, in contrast to Warner Music, which had recently renewed its own licensing deal with TikTok. In March 2024, Universal Music Publishing Group removed its catalogue of 4 million compositions from TikTok. In April 2024, Taylor Swift's music returned to the platform.

Content

Viral trends

The app has spawned numerous viral trends, Internet celebrities, and music trends around the world. 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. Many stars got their start on musical.ly, which merged with TikTok on 2 August 2018. These include Loren Gray, Baby Ariel, 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 25 March 2020. Gray's was the first TikTok account to reach 40 million followers on the platform. She was surpassed with 41.3 million followers. D'Amelio was the first to ever reach 50, 60, and 70 million followers. Charli D'Amelio remained the most-followed individual on the platform until she was surpassed by Khaby Lame on 23 June 2022. Other creators rose to fame after the platform merged with musical.ly on 2 August 2018. TikTok also played a major part in making " Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X one of the biggest songs of 2019 and the longest-running number-one song in the history of the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100.

TikTok has allowed many music artists to gain a wider audience, often including foreign fans. For example, despite never having toured in Asia, the band Fitz and the Tantrums developed a large following in South Korea following the widespread popularity of their 2016 song " HandClap" on the platform. "Any Song" by R&B and rap artist Zico became number one on the Korean music charts due to the popularity of the #anysongchallenge, where users dance to the choreography of the song. The platform has also launched many songs that failed to garner initial commercial success into sleeper hits, particularly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it has received criticism for not paying royalties to artists whose music is used on the platform.

Classic stars are able to connect with younger audiences born decades after a musician's first debut and across traditional genres. In 2020, Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" was used in a skating video and a recreation by Mick Fleetwood. The song re-entered ''Billboard'' Hot 100 after 43 years and topped Apple Music. In 2022, Kate Bush's " Running Up That Hill" went viral among fans of '' Stranger Things'', topping the UK singles chart 37 years after its original release. In 2023 Kylie Minogue's " Padam Padam" entered the Radio 1 playlist after being shared by Gen Z, even though many youth radio stations had refused to play it. Other older artists with strong engagement on TikTok include Elton John and Rod Stewart. In Japan, artists from the 1970s to 1990s, such as Kohmi Hirose, Yōko Oginome, Akina Nakamori, Seiko Matsuda, Momoe Yamaguchi and Saki Kubota, have become popular on TikTok during the Showa (and early Heisei) retro boom.

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, Oklahoma through communication on TikTok, contributing to "rows of empty seats" at the event. Later, in October 2020, an organization called ''TikTok for Biden'' was created to support then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. After the election, the organization was renamed to '' Gen-Z for Change''.

On 10 August 2020, Emily Jacobssen wrote and sang "Ode to Remy", a song praising the protagonist from Pixar's 2007 computer-animated film '' Ratatouille''. The song rose to popularity when musician Daniel Mertzlufft composed a backing track to the song. In response, began creating a "crowdsourced" project called '' Ratatouille the Musical''. Since Mertzlufft's video, many new elements including costume design, additional songs, and a playbill have been created. On 1 January 2021, a full one-hour virtual presentation of ''Ratatouille the Musical'' premiered on TodayTix. It starred Titus Burgess as Remy, Wayne Brady as Django, Adam Lambert as Emile, Kevin Chamberlin as Gusteau, Andrew Barth Feldman as Linguini, Ashley Park as Colette, Priscilla Lopez as Mabel, Mary Testa as Skinner, and André De Shields as Ego.

A viral TikTok trend known as " devious licks" involves students vandalizing or stealing school property and posting videos of the action on the platform. The trend has led to increasing school vandalism and subsequent measures taken by some schools to prevent damage. Some students have been arrested for participating in the trend. TikTok has taken measures to remove and prevent access to content displaying the trend. Another TikTok trend known as the Kia Challenge involves users stealing certain models of Kia and Hyundai cars manufactured without immobilizers, which was a standard feature at the time, between 2010 and 2021. As of February 2023, it had resulted in at least 14 crashes and eight deaths according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In May, Kia and Hyundai settled a $200-million class-action lawsuit by agreeing to provide software updates to affected vehicles and over 26,000 steering wheel locks. In 2023, a trend emerged where streamers acted as if they were video-game characters following prompts from their viewers.

On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, some celebrities who had garnered large followings as of August 2019 include Dilraba Dilmurat, Angelababy, Luo Zhixiang, Ouyang Nana, and Pan Changjiang. In the 2022 FIFA World Cup, a Qatari teenage royal became an Internet celebrity after his angry expressions were recorded in Qatar's opening match loss to Ecuador; he amassed more than 15 million followers in less than a week after creating a Douyin account.

Food and recipes

Fashion and body size

"Midsize" fashion gained greater exposure on TikTok after many creators opened up about not able to find clothing sizes that fit them well. Women's apparel can roughly be divided into petite, straight, and plus sizes, leaving gaps in between. 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.

Cosmetic surgery

Content promoting cosmetic surgery is popular on TikTok and has spawned several viral trends on the platform. In December 2021, '' Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery'', the journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, published an article about the popularity of some plastic surgeons on TikTok. In the article, it was noted that plastic surgeons were some of the earliest adopters of social media in the medical field and many had been recognized as influencers on the platform. The article published stats about the most popular plastic surgeons on TikTok up to February 2021 and at the time, five different plastic surgeons had surpassed 1 million followers on the platform.

In 2021, it was reported that a trend known as the #NoseJobCheck trend was going viral on TikTok. TikTok content creators used a specific audio on their videos while showing how their noses looked before and after having their rhinoplasty surgeries. 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. In 2020, Charli D'Amelio, the most-followed person on TikTok at the time, also made a #NoseJobCheck video to show the results of her surgery to repair a broken nose. 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. They also reported that facilities that offered these surgeries were also posting about them on TikTok. 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. NBC reported that videos using the hashtags '#plasticsurgery' and '#lipfiller' had amassed a combined 26 billion views on the platform.

In December 2022, it was reported that a cosmetic surgery procedure known as buccal fat removal was going viral on the platform. The procedure involves surgically removing fat from the cheeks in order to give the face a slimmer and more chiseled appearance. Videos using hashtags related to buccal fat removal had collectively amassed over 180 million views. Some TikTok users criticized the trend for promoting an unobtainable beauty standard.

Film criticism

A significant number of users on TikTok, such as Juju Green, create content surrounding Film criticism and Easter eggs. However, as reported by ''The New York Times'', these people often do not see themselves necessarily as film critics. 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. By 2022, TikTok released a Showbiz List, highlighting individuals who were having a larger impact on the film industry.

During the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, such influencers were told that they would be denied future entry into the union if they partnered with struck studios. This led many creators to stop creating new content which they were not already contractually obligated to create. Creators who posted saying that they would not be changing their content, such as Green, were met with significant criticism.

STEM feed

In March 2023, TikTok introduced a dedicated feed for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content. It works with Common Sense Networks to check for safety and age appropriateness and with the Poynter Institute for reliability of information.

Heating

In January 2023, ''Forbes'' reported that a "heating" tool allows TikTok to manually promote certain videos, comprising 1–2% of daily views. The practice began as a way to grow and diversify content and influencers that were not automatically picked up by the recommendation algorithm. It was also used to promote brands, artists, and NGOs, such as the FIFA World Cup and Taylor Swift. However, some employees have abused it to promote their own accounts or those of their spouses, while others have felt that their guidelines leave too much room for discretion. TikTok said only a few individuals can approve heating in the U.S. and the promoted videos take up less than 0.002% of user feeds. To address concerns of Chinese influence, the company is negotiating with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) such that future heating could only be performed by vetted security personnel in the U.S. and the process would be audited by third-parties such as Oracle.

Censorship and moderation

TikTok's and Douyin's censorship policies have been criticized as non-transparent. Internal guidelines against the promotion of violence, separatism, and "demonization of countries" could be used to prohibit content related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Falun Gong, human rights in Tibet, Taiwan, Chechnya, Northern Ireland, the Cambodian genocide, the 1998 Indonesian riots, Kurdish nationalism, ethnic conflicts between blacks and whites, or between different Islamic sects. A more specific list banned criticisms against world leaders, including past and present ones from Russia, the United States, Japan, North and South Korea, India, Indonesia, and Turkey. In 2019, ''The Guardian'' reported that TikTok had censored videos of topics not favored by the Chinese government. That year, TikTok took down a video about human rights abuses in the Xinjiang internment camps against Uyghurs but restored it after 50 minutes as well as the creator's account, saying that the action was a mistake and triggered by a brief "satirical" image of Osama bin Laden in another post. Other human rights activists have also said that their TikTok videos discussing human rights violations of the Uyghurs have been taken down.

TikTok moderators were instructed to suppress posts from "For You" recommendations if the users shown were deemed "too ugly, poor, or disabled". The consumption of alcohol, full or partial nudity, LGBT, and intersex contents were restricted even in places where they are legal. TikTok has since apologized and instituted a ban against anti-LGBTQ ideology, but censorship continues on Douyin due to regulations in China. Douyin guidelines also forbid live broadcasting by unregistered foreigners, "feudal superstition", "money worship", smoking and drinking, competitive eating by the "already obese", "toxic" slime, "pornographic" ASMR such as ear-licking, and female anchors wearing revealing clothes.

ByteDance said its early guidelines were global and aimed at reducing online harassment and divisiveness when its platforms were still growing. They have been replaced by versions customized by local teams for users in different regions. A March 2021 study by the Citizen Lab found that TikTok did not censor searches politically but was inconclusive about whether posts are. A 2023 paper by the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Institute of Technology concluded that TikTok is "not exporting censorship, either directly by blocking material, or indirectly via its recommendation algorithm."

After increased scrutiny, TikTok said it is granting some outside experts access to the platform's anonymized data sets and protocols, including filters, keywords, criteria for heating, and source code. A December 2023 study by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found a "strong possibility that content on TikTok is either amplified or suppressed based on its alignment with the interests of the Chinese government." According to its director, the NCRI is an independent non-profit research organization funded by Rutgers University, the British government, and private donors. ''The New York Times'' commented that " ready, there is evidence that China uses TikTok as a propaganda tool. Posts related to subjects that the Chinese government wants to suppress — like Hong Kong protests and Tibet — are strangely missing from the platform." TikTok subsequently restricted the number of hashtags that can be searched under its Creative Center, saying it was "misused to draw inaccurate conclusions".

A historian from the Cato Institute said that there were "basic errors" in the Rutgers University study and criticized the uncritical news coverage that followed. The study compares data from before TikTok even existed to show the app has fewer hashtags about historically sensitive topics, distorting the findings.

In August 2024, the NCRI released a subsequent report based on user journey data from 24 accounts that they created across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. By searching for four keywords—Uyghur, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Tiananmen, the researchers found that TikTok returned a higher percentage of positive, neutral, or irrelevant content related to human rights in China. For example, more than 25% of results for "Tiananmen" on TikTok were considered pro-China by the researchers, compared to 16% on Instagram and 8% on YouTube. In other cases, however, Instagram and YouTube showed higher rates of pro-China content than TikTok. For example, 50% of searches about "Uyghur" and "Xinjiang" on YouTube were considered positive, compared to less than 25% on TikTok. The researchers said this is because some YouTube accounts are linked to state actors. According to their survey, people who use TikTok more than three hours daily are significantly more positive about China's human rights record compared to those who do not use the app. TikTok pushed back against the NCRI, saying that making "accounts that interact with the app in a prescribed manner" is not the same as the experience of real users and some of the events being compared happened before TikTok existed.

Extremism and hate

Concerns have been voiced regarding content relating to, and the promotion and spreading of, hate speech and far-right extremism, such as antisemitism, islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia. Some videos were shown to expressly promote Holocaust denial and told viewers to take up arms and fight in the name of white supremacy and the swastika. As TikTok has gained popularity among young children, and the popularity of extremist and hateful content is growing, calls for tighter restrictions on their flexible boundaries have been made. TikTok has since released tougher parental controls to filter out inappropriate content and to ensure they can provide sufficient protection and security.

In October 2019, TikTok removed about two dozen accounts that were responsible for posting ISIL propaganda and execution videos on the app. In Malaysia, TikTok is used by some users to engage in hate speech against race and religion especially mentioning the 13 May incident after the 2022 election. TikTok responded by taking down videos with content that violated their community guidelines.

In March 2023, '' The Jewish Chronicle'' reported that TikTok still hosted videos that promoted the neo-Nazi propaganda film '' Europa: The Last Battle'', despite having been alerted to the issue four months prior. TikTok said it removed and would continue to remove the content and associated accounts and has blocked the search term as well. In July 2024, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue reported that an organized neo-Nazi TikTok network promoting neo-Nazi propaganda, including ''Europa: The Last Battle'', was receiving millions of views and was having its content promoted by TikTok's algorithm.

In September 2024, Sky News reported that clips of Adolf Hitler's speeches with added music were attracting high levels of engagement on TikTok. Although they were removed by TikTok after the report, mixing audio remains an effective way to evade content moderation on many platforms.

Graphic content

In June 2021, TikTok made an apology after a shock video, showing a girl dancing which then cuts to a graphic scene of a man being beheaded by a saw, went viral. The video has now been sent to TikTok's blacklist, which automatically detects it before being uploaded. TikTok has previously worked to remove graphic content from its platform, including the suicide video that was circulating in September 2020, which had appeared within the recommended clips of TikTok's For You section.

Misinformation

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 U.S. alt-right) whose hashtags reached almost 80 million views and 50 million views respectively by June 2020. The platform has also been used to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, such as clips from '' Plandemic''. TikTok removed some of these videos and has generally added links to accurate COVID-19 information on videos with tags related to the pandemic.

In January 2020, left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America said that TikTok hosted misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic despite a recent policy against misinformation. In April 2020, the government of India asked TikTok to remove users posting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. There were also multiple conspiracy theories that the government is involved with the spread of the pandemic. It reported that in the second half of 2020, over 340,000 videos in the U.S. about election misinformation and 50,000 videos of COVID-19 misinformation were removed.

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. TikTok partnered with the National Association of Secretaries of State to give accurate local information to users. In September 2022, NewsGuard Technologies reported that among the TikTok searches it had conducted and analyzed from the U.S., 19.4% surfaced misinformation such as questionable or harmful content about COVID-19 vaccines, homemade remedies, the 2020 U.S. elections, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Robb Elementary School shooting, and abortion. NewsGuard suggested that in contrast, results from Google were of higher quality. Mashable's own test from Australia found innocuous results after searching for "getting my COVID vaccine" but suggestions such as "climate change is a myth" after typing in "climate change".

In November 2023, Singaporean Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam applied for court orders requiring TikTok to provide information on the identity of three users that he accuses of spreading false and defamatory information about him. The users had shared on TikTok an article published by celebscritic.com alleging that K. Shanmugam was involved in an extra-marital affair.

Russian invasion of Ukraine

As of 2022, TikTok is the 10th most popular app in Russia. After a new set of Russian war censorship laws was installed in March 2022, the company announced a series of restrictions on Russian and non-Russian posts and livestreams. ''Tracking Exposed'', a user data rights group, learned of what was likely a technical glitch that became exploited by pro-Russia posters. It stated that although this and other loopholes were patched by TikTok before the end of March, the initial failure to correctly implement the restrictions, in addition to the effects from Kremlin's "fake news" laws, contributed to the formation of a "splInternet ... dominated by pro-war content" in Russia. TikTok said that it had removed 204 accounts for swaying public opinion about the war while obscuring their origins and that its fact checkers had removed 41,191 videos for violating its misinformation policies.

In December 2023, BBC News reported that it had discovered nearly 800 fake TikTok accounts promoting Russian propaganda and disinformation. TikTok's own investigation found more than 12,000 fake accounts, including ones using additional languages such as English and Italian.

In September 2024, TikTok removed the accounts of Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik.

Feminism

The growth of popularity and access to TikTok has contributed to a growth in popularity of digital feminist movements and discourse originating from the platform. Digital spaces like TikTok enable marginalized communities and activists, such as feminists, to feel safer and have an easier place to engage in discussion and dialogue or build an identity which might otherwise be impossible due to circumstances. The momentum of digital feminist movements through platforms like TikTok have additionally encouraged many social media agents and marketing campaigns around the world to adopt some degree of feminism as a part of their online image or personal brand. 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. However inversely enabled by the platform's organic potential, both feminist challenges and anti-feminist reinforcement of dominant social, hierarchical, and gender values are widespread and instigated through TikTok, and content labeled as anti-feminist is itself popularized on TikTok.

Usage

Demographics

TikTok tends to appeal to younger users, as 41% of its users are between the ages of 16 and 24. , these individuals are considered Generation Z. Among these TikTok users, 90% said they used the app daily. 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. But adults have also seen growth on TikTok. The share of U.S. adults who regularly get news from TikTok hit 14% in 2023.

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. 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. The average user, daily, was spending 1 hour and 25 minutes on the app and opening TikTok 17 times. Out of TikTok's top 100 male creators, a 2022 analysis reported 67% were white, with 54% having near-perfect facial symmetry.

Teenage mode

China heavily regulates how Douyin is used by minors in the country, especially after 2018. Under government pressure, ByteDance introduced parental controls and a "teenage mode" that shows only whitelisted content, such as knowledge sharing, and bans pranks, superstition, dance clubs, and pro-LGBT content. A mandatory screen time limit was put in place for users under the age of 14 and a requirement to link accounts to a real identity to prevent minors from lying about their age or using an adult's account. The differences between Douyin and TikTok have led some U.S. politicians and commentators to accuse the company or the Chinese government of malicious intent. In March 2023, TikTok announced default screen time limits for users under the age of 18. Those under the age of 13 would need a passcode from their parents to extend their time.

Underage users

As with other platforms popular with children, underage users may inadvertently reveal their daily routine and whereabouts, raising concerns of potential misuse by sexual predators. At the time of reporting (2018), TikTok had only two privacy settings, either private or completely public, without any middle ground. Comment sections of "sexy" videos, such as young girls dancing in revealing clothes, were found to contain requests for nude pictures. TikTok itself forbids direct messaging of videos and photos, which meant follow-up interactions, if any, would have to take place in some other form. In recent years, the U.S. has charged and sentenced sexual predators for illegal activities on TikTok against underage girls.

On 22 January 2021, the Italian Data Protection Authority demanded that TikTok temporarily suspend Italian users whose age could not be established. The order came after the death of a 10-year-old Sicilian girl involved in an Internet challenge. TikTok asked its users in Italy to confirm again that they were over 13 years old. By May, over 500,000 accounts had been removed for failing the age check.

In July 2021, the Dutch Data Protection Authority fined TikTok €750,000 for offering privacy statements only in English but not in Dutch. It noted that TikTok had implemented positive measures, such as forbidding direct messaging for users younger than 16 and allowing their parents to manage privacy settings directly through a paired family account, but the risk of children pretending to be older when creating their account remains. TikTok raised the minimum age for livestreaming from 16 to 18 after a BBC News investigation found hundreds of accounts going live from Syrian refugee camps. Thirty of them showed children begging for digital donation. TikTok reportedly made as much as a 70% commission on some of them, a figure that the company disputed.

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. On December 30, 2024, Venezuela's Supreme Court fined TikTok $10 million over viral challenges that authorities say led to the deaths of three children. The court cited TikTok's negligence in failing to implement "necessary and adequate measures" to prevent the viral video challenges.

Influencer marketing

TikTok has provided a platform for users to create content not only for fun but also for money. As the platform has grown significantly over the past few years, it has allowed companies to advertise and rapidly reach their intended demographic through influencer marketing. The platform's algorithm also contributes to the influencer marketing potential, as it picks out content according to the user's preference. Sponsored content is not as prevalent on the platform as it is on other social media apps, but brands and influencers still can make as much as they would if not more in comparison to other platforms. Influencers on the platform who earn money through engagement, such as likes and comments, are referred to as "meme machines".

In 2021, ''The New York Times'' reported that viral TikTok videos by young people relating the emotional impact of books on them, tagged with the label " BookTok", significantly drove sales of literature. Publishers were increasingly using the platform as a venue for influencer marketing.

In December 2022, NBC News reported in a television segment that some TikTok and YouTube influencers were being given free and discounted cosmetic surgeries in order for them to advertise the surgeries to users of the platforms. In 2022, it was reported that a trend called "de-influencing" had become popular on the platform as a backlash to influencer marketing. TikTok creators participating in this trend made videos criticizing products promoted by influencers and asked their audiences not to buy products they did not need. However, some creators participating in the trend started promoting alternative products to their audiences and earning commission from sales made through their affiliate links in the same manner as the influencers they were originally criticizing.

In June 2022, ''NBC News'' reported that some of the influencers paid by ''FeetFinder'', a website that sells foot fetish content, did not disclose their videos were ads. FeetFinder said that it has suggested to influencers to be upfront about who was funding them. Existing sellers on FeetFinder said that the videos often misrepresented how "easy" it is to make money from posting feet pictures. Other TikTok creators have spoken out against accepting sponsorship deals indiscriminately and criticized those who posted undisclosed FeetFinder ads.

Businesses

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. Some small businesses have used TikTok to advertise and to reach an audience wider than the geographical region they would normally serve. The viral response to many small business TikTok videos has been attributed to TikTok's algorithm, which shows content that viewers at large are drawn to, but which they are unlikely to actively search for (such as videos on unconventional types of businesses, like beekeeping and logging

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