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.
Privacy and security concerns
In May 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that former employees complained about TikTok tracking users who had viewed LGBT-related content. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) actively recruits influencers on TikTok and other social media platforms, often with what commentators have dubbed “Thirst traps”. 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.
User Data Privacy
They also reported that facilities that offered these surgeries were also posting about them on TikTok. 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 2021, it was reported that a trend known as the #NoseJobCheck trend was going viral on TikTok. 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.
Platform
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. 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. In 2019, media outlets cited TikTok as the 7th-most-downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2010 to 2019. After merging with musical.ly in August, downloads increased and TikTok became the most downloaded app in the US in October 2018, which musical.ly had done once before. On September 14, 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported the US and China have reached the “framework of a deal” for the US operations of TikTok to be sold to a consortium of investors in the US including close Trump ally Larry Ellison of Oracle. While Beijing preferred TikTok remain under ByteDance’s control, the sale could happen through a competitive process or with US government involvement.
- In June 2022, TikTok introduced the ability to set a maximum uninterrupted screen time allowance, after which the app blocks off the ability to navigate the feed.
- A 2024 unclassified threat assessment by the Director of National Intelligence said “TikTok accounts run by a Chinese propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates” during the 2022 United States elections.
- TikTok has previously worked to remove graphic content from its platform, including a suicide video that circulated in September 2020, which had appeared among the recommended clips of TikTok’s For You section.
- On 22 January 2021, the Italian Data Protection Authority demanded that TikTok temporarily suspend Italian users whose age could not be established.
- 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.
- US lawmakers wanting to ban TikTok accused the platform of pushing pro-Hamas and pro-Palestine content.
TikTok has taken measures to remove and prevent access to content displaying the trend. The song rose to popularity when musician Daniel Mertzlufft composed a backing track to the song. In 2020, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was used in a skating video and a recreation by Mick Fleetwood.
TikTok’s privacy policy lists that the app collects usage information, IP addresses, a user’s mobile carrier, unique device identifiers, keystroke patterns, and location data, among other data. 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. 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. The platform’s algorithm also contributes to the influencer marketing potential, as it picks out content according to the user’s preference.
LIMITED TIME
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.
- According to a 2020 article in The New York Times, Central Intelligence Agency analysts determined that while it is possible the Chinese government could obtain user information from the app, there was no evidence it had done so.
- The differences between Douyin and TikTok have led some US politicians and commentators to accuse the company or the Chinese government of malicious intent.
- In January 2023, Forbes reported that a “heating” tool allows TikTok to manually promote certain videos, comprising 1–2% of daily views.
- The company has been engaged in confidential negotiations over the project with CFIUS since 2021 and submitted its proposal but received little response from the panel afterward.
- 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.
- All you have to do is watch, engage with what you like, skip what you don’t, and you’ll find an endless stream of short videos that feel personalized just for you.
Under the agreement reached, it is guaranteed that Americans will be protected on the social network TikTok through “data protection,” “content oversight,” and “algorithm security.” According to a 2020 article in The New York Times, Central Intelligence Agency analysts determined that while it is possible the Chinese government could obtain user information from the app, there was no evidence it had done so. Women in Kenya reported earning money through TikTok Lives, ruhtinas where coded sexual slang and emoji gifts facilitated transactions, with explicit content often delivered via other platforms. Many of the TikTok videos covering the letter were critical of bin Laden, and media coverage had exaggerated its significance while elevating the virality of the letter.
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. 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. In January 2023, Forbes reported that a “heating” tool allows TikTok to manually promote certain videos, comprising 1–2% of daily views. A significant number of users on TikTok, such as Juju Green, create content surrounding Film criticism and Easter eggs.
Product Details
The company has been engaged in confidential negotiations over the project with CFIUS since 2021 and submitted its proposal but received little response from the panel afterward. Physical locations would be established so that Oracle and the US government could conduct their own reviews. This applies to those signing contracts with and receiving payment transactions from ByteDance. The whistleblower claimed in a sworn court statement that his father in mainland China had been detained by the authorities in retaliation for his speaking to the media about alleged censorship by TikTok.
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.
Underage users
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 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.