English-language TikTok is China’s first truly global app, with 717 million monthly active users. But it’s roots are 'a double-edged sword', and its biggest challenge is scrutiny from regulators, especially in the U.S.A.
"The only certainty about TikTok is uncertainty." == Shira Ovide, wapo
2016 Sept: Predecessor Douyin was launched in China by ByteDance.
2017-2018: English-language version of the video-based social media network TikTok gradually rolled out.
The Year 2 0 2 2
2022 Friday March: Russia passed a law that imposes a jail term of up to 15 years for anyone who intentionally spreads 'fake news' about the country's military amid the invasion of Ukraine.
2022 Sunday March: TikTok announced suspension of new content and livestreaming on its platform in Russia, citing safety concerns for its users and employees in the country. In a statement, TikTok declared that it has "no choice ... while we review the safety implications of this law".
2022 March: Tik-Tok created a censored version of the app just for Russians. After the Ukraine invasion and Vladimir Putin’s information crackdown, the video app walled off Russian users from seeing posts from outside the country and announced a ban on uploads from Russia. Pro-Russian government propaganda is still available on the app, while antiwar hashtags have all but vanished.
2022 May: TikTok became the fifth-most popular social media app in the U.S., beating sixth-place Snapchat.
2022 June: The first in-person VidCon [est. 2010] since 2019 was held in Anaheim, CA; it is the largest convention for people you normally see on a tiny phone screen; officially partnered with/sponsored by TikTok for 2022, replacing the previous partner YouTube.
2022 July: F.C.C. commissioner Brendan Carr called on Apple and Google to remove Tik-Tok from their app stores.
The Year 2 0 2 3
2023 late February: N.A.T.O. officially banned all staffers from downloading the TikTok app onto their NATO-provided devices.
2023 March: New Zealand's parliament ordered the TikTok app be removed from all devices with access to the legislature.
2023 March 3: Australia banned the use of TikTok on government devices, putting the country in line with its allies in the U.S., Britain, and Canada, which have already announced similar restrictions.
2023 March: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew tangled with infuriated lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week, emerging as a Hero of the People: he seemed to many a sympathetic figure being unfairly singled out by tech-illiterate, disrespectful politicians. Chew also said that the company is moving its data into the U.S. to be stored on American soil – but Western governments remain skeptical.
2023 Wed March 15: The Biden Administration threatened to ban TikTok unless its Chinese owners sell their stakes in the video-sharing app; the demand by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which oversees national security risks in cross-border investments, marked a shift for the administration as some Republicans accuse it of failing to adequately address the potential security threat posed by the video-sharing app. TikTok has said that it would spend $1.5 billion to protect U.S. data and content from access by the Chinese government.
2023 Thu March 16: The British government banned TikTok from official government devices, over concern about the way in which this data may be used.
2023 Thu March 23: TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew testified before the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee, trying to make the case that a sale won’t alleviate U.S. lawmakers’ privacy concerns; lawmakers grilled Chew about concerns China could use the popular video-sharing app to gather data on users and spread misinformation, posing a security threat. Chew said that TikTok is "free from any manipulation from any government". Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) stated "To the American people watching today, hear this: TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you and manipulate what you see and exploit . . . future generations".
2023 April: The White House said that TikTok's China-based parent, ByteDance, would have to sell its stake in TikTok's U.S. operations or face punishment, possibly including a ban.
2023 April 10: Aussie broadcaster Sky News Australia quit the TikTok video app, saying that security risks are 'too great' for media; the broadcaster's digital editor called it 'a spy network masquerading as a social media platform'.
2023 April 15: The Montana legislature passed a bill that will block downloads of the popular TikTok app, while the federal government weighs doing the same nationwide; the governor already forbade the TikTok app on state government devices. The new law goes into effect on January First, and will not affect people who already have the app downloaded. TikTok plans to sue to challenge the ban.
2023 May 17: Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a law making Montana the first U.S. state to compre-hensively ban the Chinese-owned TikTok app. While other states and countries have banned TikTok on govern-ment-issued or -connected devices over national security concerns, Montana’s law blocks the app from operating inside its borders and penalizes app stores from making TikTok available for download in Montana.
2023 June: TikTok announced that it is testing its new A.I. chatbot Tako in the Philippines.
2023 mid-September: TikTop Shop was officially launched in the US.
2023 Wed Dec 14: The U.S. Senate approved a bill seeking to ban TikTok from U.S. government devices due to concerns that the social media app, owned by China's ByteDance, could pose an information-security risk. Senators approved the legislation, authored by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), by unanimous consent. U.S. officials say there's a danger that the Chinese government could get hold of TikTok users' data. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [Dem CA] said that it wasn't clear whether the House would take up its version of the bill, as House lawmakers are discussing the legislation's language with the White House. A TikTok spokesperson said the Senate bill "does nothing to advance U.S. national security concerns".
The Year 2 0 2 4
2024 April: Taylor Swift's music returned to TikTok following a dispute with her music distributor over royalties; her new album “The Tortured Poets Department” will be her 11th studio album.
2024 April 18: Under orders from the Chinese government, Apple removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China.
2024 April 21: As part of some rushed weekend deal-making, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill – by a bipartisan vote of 360 to 58 – to force TikTok to divest from its Chinese owners within a year or face a ban in the United States.
2024 April 24: President Biden signed into law the controversial new bill that gives TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, 269 days (~9 months) to sell the social media platform or else have it banned in the U.S.
2024 May 7: TikTok filed a 66-page legal complaint to escalate its beef with the U.S. over a law that forces it to be sold to a non-Chinese company to avoid a ban. In its legal challenge, TikTok called the law 'unprecedented' and 'unconstitutional', arguing that a ban would deprive its 170 million U.S. users of the right to free expression under the First Amendment. The suit also maintains that the government presented no concrete evidence that the app is a threat to national security. Legal wonks expect the U.S. to argue that its actions are legitimate due to concerns over China using TikTok to steal Americans’ data or push propaganda.
2024 June 2: Years after moving to ban the popular social media platform, Trump officially joined TikTok this weekend; the former president's account quickly attained over 3.4 million followers.
2024 Nov: Before the U.S. national election, the Bluesky app had 10 months of essentially flat growth; in the week following the election, visits to the Bluesky app skyrocketed 519% in the US and 352% in the UK, with a million signups in that week.
2024 Dec 7: TikTok lost its bid to strike down a law that could result in the platform being banned in the United States on 19 January 2025; a federal appeals court upheld the law in a ruling denying the company's argument that the law was unconstitutional.
Under the law, app stores could face major fines if they continue to host TikTok following the deadline if it's not sold. TikTok indicated that it plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. The ban could be delayed or avoided with support from Donald Trump after he takes office. President Biden could also technically grant a one-time, 90-day extension of the deadline, although he has not indicated that he will do so.
There is still no public evidence that the Chinese government has spied on people through TikTok. ( NOTE: However, since the many data breach attacks against American government & commercial databases by Communist Chinese government & civilian groups keep happening, it is prudent to assume that China is doing so thru the TikTok app. )
The Year 2 0 2 5
2025 January: TikTok has 170 million users in the U.S., about half the nation. One-third of U.S. adults use TikTok; usage among U.S. teens is much higher: about 63 percent of Americans ages 13-17 use the app, 'including 57 percent who use it daily and 16 percent who say they’re on it almost constantly'. Though favored by the young, TikTok has a significant audience in older age groups, including 26 percent of those ages 50-64.
The clock has run out on TikTok — at least for now. Late Saturday night 1-18, TikTok became unusable for Americans, who were met with a message saying the app was offline and asking users to “stay tuned.” It was also unavailable on the Apple and Google Play stores, and users were scrambling during the final hours.
On Saturday 1-18, TikTok went dark about 90 minutes before midnight ET.
President-elect Donald Trump posted to Truth Social early yesterday that he would sign an executive order to bring back TikTok after he is sworn in today. TikTok released a statement a few hours later that it was going full Palpatine and somehow returning.
TikTok isn’t all the way back: While access to the app has been restored for most users in the US, some people said they couldn’t download it through Apple and Android app stores.
2025 Jan 21: Dictator Trump directed the Department of Justice not to enforce a law requiring TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban in the U.S., giving the app a 75-day reprieve from penalties.
Divisions, Subsidiaries, Groups
BookTok — TikTok’s community of bibliophiles
TikTok [est. 2016] ~ A.I. chatbot Tako
getting a test run in the Philippines in June 2023
A Few Important People
Jeffrey Yass, the billionaire financier and TikTok stakeholder who has quietly become the leading Republican donor of the 2024 campaign cycle.
"TikTok For Dummies" [2021] by Jesse Stay expert digital strategist author delivers an easy-to-read discussion, walking you through the steps of installing the app, creating an attractive profile, securing your account and keeping yourself safe on the platform, finding the best content for engaging with your target community, and creating videos that have viral potential
Kindle Edition from Wiley/For Dummies [4/2021] for $11.00 Wiley/For Dummies 8&frac35x5¾ pb [5/2021] for $15.99
"TikTok Boom: China's Dynamite App and The Superpower Race For Social Media" [2021] by British journalist Chris Stokel-Walker
Canbury Press 9x6 pb [7/2021] for $19.99
"TikTok Marketing Secrets: The Simple Step-By-Step Guide To Unlock Millions of Views For Your Business" [2022] by Will Bower
a guide to help brands, business owners, and marketers to achieve their goal of viral success in the scary ocean that is the TikTok algorithm
166-page self-publd 9x6 pb [10/2022] for $9.99
TikTok is a short-form video platform that became famous for viral dances performed by the likes of fresh-faced tweens and teens whose queen was Charli D’Amelio. (Part of that DNA comes from Musical.ly, a lip-synching app that TikTok swallowed up in 2018.) TikTok truly exploded in the early days of the pandemic, when much of life moved online. In late 2021, the app hit 1 billion active users. An estimated 25 percent of TikTok’s users in the U.S. are 10-to-19-years old — a demographic that Meta is hoping to win back. TikTok is Apple and Google’s most popular app. 6/2022
The popular platform is owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance; suspicion of pressure from the Communist Chinese government has created demands by the U.S. government for ByteDance to sell wholly-owned subsidiary TikTok
http://www.bytedance.com/ [est. 2012] + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance
Douyin [released Sept 2016] http://www.douyin.com/ + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok#Douyin
TikTok [released 2017-2018] http://www.tiktok.com/ + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
31 states have taken action to restrict TikTok on government devices, reflecting a wave of recent clampdowns by Republican and Democratic governors targeting the short-form video app. The accelerating backlash comes amid renewed security concerns about how the platform handles user data and fears that it could find its way to the Chinese government.
It’s no secret that the government considers TikTok a national security threat. But in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday 3-2, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo suggested that the government is concerned about the dangers posed by other Chinese apps, too.
“If what we’re worried about is Chinese-backed companies being on tens of millions of American phones, including members of the military and privacy concerns, data concerns, misinformation concerns—it doesn’t just apply to TikTok,” she said.
Thing is, Chinese apps are the most popular apps in the US right now. The top three free apps on Apple’s App Store yesterday were Temu, CapCut, and TikTok, while Google Play’s were Temu, TikTok, and Street Fighter: Duel—with Chinese fast-fashion company Shein chilling at No. 4.
Except for Street Fighter, all of these apps are based in China and have been downloaded onto American devices hundreds of millions of times.
•CapCut is a video editor for TikTok owned by the same tech giant, ByteDance.
•Temu is a shopping app that was already gaining traction in the US late last year but boarded a rocket ship to the most-downloaded spot after airing two spots for its “Shop Like a Billionaire” commercial during the Super Bowl.
For now, TikTok has the biggest target on its back:
•Legislation to ban TikTok in the US was approved by an influential House committee this week, though it still has to face trials by fire with the full House and Senate.
•Government agencies have 30 days from Feb. 27 to ensure TikTok is deleted from all federal devices and systems.
The US has recently demanded Chinese-owned ByteDance sell its stake in TikTok or else it would ban the app.
-- An from the United Kingdom, on The move follows similar restrictions imposed by the US and other countries over how the social media platform could access users' personal data. TikTok expressed disappointment at the decision, saying in a statement that the recent bans "have been based on fundamental misconceptions and driven by wider geopolitics."
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![The Hollywood Reporter Magazine [est. 1930] single issue](covers3/mHwdReporter2020may-tiktokboom.jpg "The Hollywood Reporter Magazine [est. 1930] single issue")
