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. The practice began as a way to grow and diversify content and influencers that were not automatically picked up by the recommendation algorithm. It works with Common Sense Networks to check for safety and age appropriateness and with the Poynter Institute for reliability of information.
TikTok has come under scrutiny due to data privacy violations, mental health concerns, misinformation, offensive content, addictive algorithm, and its role during the Gaza war. The popularity of TikTok has allowed viral trends in food, fashion, and music to take off and increase the platform’s cultural impact worldwide. The developer, TikTok Ltd., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.
Data Linked to You
The day before the impending ban, California-based conversational search engine company Perplexity AI submitted a bid for a merger with TikTok US. 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. In March 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok’s growth in the U.S. had stagnated.
Comment sections of “sexy” videos, such as young girls dancing in revealing clothes, were found to contain requests for nude pictures. In March 2023, TikTok announced default screen time limits for users under the age of 18. 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. Out of TikTok’s top 100 male creators, a 2022 analysis reported 67% were white, with 54% having near-perfect facial symmetry.
App Privacy
Content promoting cosmetic surgery is popular on TikTok and has spawned several viral trends on the platform. Women’s apparel can roughly be divided into petite, straight, and plus sizes, leaving gaps in between. “Midsize” fashion gained greater exposure on TikTok after many creators opened up about not able to find clothing sizes that fit them well.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that doctors experienced a surge in reported cases of tics, tied to vegas casino app an increasing number of TikTok videos from content creators with Tourette syndrome. Since 2021, it has been reported that accounts engaging with contents related to suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders were shown more similar videos. 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. 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. The “For You” page on TikTok is a feed of videos that are recommended to users based on their activity on the app.
U.S. lawmakers wanting to ban TikTok accused the platform of pushing pro-Hamas and pro-Palestine content. Several former employees of the company have claimed of poor workplace conditions, including the start of the workweek on Sunday to cooperate with Chinese time zones and excessive workload. Wegovy, a drug that has been specifically approved for treating obesity, also became popular on the platform after Elon Musk credited it for helping him lose weight.
Privacy and security concerns
Many platforms and services, including YouTube Shorts, began to imitate TikTok’s format and recommendation page. 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 U.S. 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 Larry Ellison of Oracle.
Content is curated by TikTok’s artificial intelligence depending on the content a user liked, interacted with, or searched. On 18 April 2024, Notes first released to users in Canada and Australia for limited testing. A Meta spokesperson said that all platforms, including TikTok, should face scrutiny. Republican Party—to coordinate lobbying and media campaigns against TikTok and portray it as “a danger to American children and society”.
- Following the reports, TikTok confirmed that employees in China could have access to U.S. data.
- 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 U.S. government or a third party such as Oracle.
- 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.
- 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.
- Employees have reported that multiple overlaps exist between TikTok and ByteDance in terms of personnel management and product development.
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. Several TikTok content creators, such as Eitan Bernath and Emily Mariko have gained recognition through their recipes and content. 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. Since Mertzlufft’s video, many new elements including costume design, additional songs, and a playbill have been created.
- In December 2022, ByteDance confirmed after internal investigation that the data of two journalists and their close contacts had been accessed by its employees from China and the United States.
- 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.
- TikTok announced a “family safety mode” in February 2020 for parents to be able to control their children’s presence on the app.
- TikTok was also accused by Malaysia’s minister of communications, Fahmi Fadzil of suppressing pro-Palestinian content.
- The average user, daily, was spending 1 hour and 25 minutes on the app and opening TikTok 17 times.
Features
The app has spawned numerous viral trends, Internet celebrities, and music trends around the world. On 19 July 2023, TikTok Music was expanded for select users in Australia, Mexico and Singapore. However, a few days later, users on Twitter discovered that the software uses code from the open-source OBS Studio.
Featured In
Charli D’Amelio remained the most-followed individual on the platform until she was surpassed by Khaby Lame on 23 June 2022. Many stars got their start on musical.ly, which merged with TikTok on 2 August 2018. It is reported that TikTok Music features songs from major record companies like Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group. 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. If over 18, the user’s followers can send virtual “gifts” that can be later exchanged for money. 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.
Log in to TikTok
In 2022, Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) initiated a probe into TikTok in relation to millions of dollars in fund transfers involving TikTok accounts that were suspected of money laundering or terrorism financing. He claimed the evidence may prove the company’s involvement in “human smuggling, sex trafficking and drug trafficking”. Paxton claimed that the Texas Department of Public Safety gathered several pieces of content showing the attempted recruitment of teenagers to smuggle people or goods across the Mexico–United States border. In February 2022, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton initiated an investigation into TikTok for alleged violations of children’s privacy and facilitation of human trafficking.
Publishers were increasingly using the platform as a venue for influencer marketing. Influencers on the platform who earn money through engagement, such as likes and comments, are referred to as “meme machines”. 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 court cited TikTok’s negligence in failing to implement “necessary and adequate measures” to prevent the viral video challenges.
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. These trends amassed popularity in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many people spent more time cooking at home while engaging with social media for entertainment. A viral TikTok trend known as “devious licks” involves students vandalizing or stealing school property and posting videos of the action 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 company said its algorithm tracks interests not identity, and non-LGBT users also view such content. 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 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.
In September 2021, the Ireland Data Protection Commission (DPC) launched investigations into TikTok concerning the protection of minors’ data and transfers of personal data to China. The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia reportedly subpoenaed information from ByteDance regarding its surveillance of journalists on TikTok. In December 2022, ByteDance confirmed after internal investigation that the data of two journalists and their close contacts had been accessed by its employees from China and the United States. TikTok said that the tracking method suggested by the report would not be feasible because precise GPS information is not collected by the platform. In October 2022, Forbes reported that a team at ByteDance planned to surveil certain U.S. citizens for undisclosed reasons.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
The study compares data from before TikTok even existed to show the app has fewer hashtags about historically sensitive topics, distorting the findings. They have been replaced by versions customized by local teams for users in different regions. TikTok moderators were instructed to suppress posts from “For You” recommendations if the users shown were deemed “too ugly, poor, or disabled”. Other human rights activists have also said that their TikTok videos discussing human rights violations of the Uyghurs have been taken down.
About this app
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 U.S.-based team. 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 2020, TikTok updated their terms of service to ban content that promotes “premium sexual content”, impacting a large number of adult content creators. TikTok is regularly used by sex workers to promote pornographic content sold on platforms such as OnlyFans.
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. However, it has received criticism for not paying royalties to artists whose music is used on the platform. TikTok has allowed many music artists to gain a wider audience, often including foreign fans.
