TikTok Wikipedia

In other cases, however, Instagram and YouTube showed higher rates of pro-China content than TikTok. 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. ByteDance said its early guidelines were global and aimed at reducing online harassment and divisiveness when its platforms were still growing. The consumption of alcohol, full or partial nudity, LGBT, and intersex contents were restricted even in places where they are legal. 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.

Potential data collection by the Chinese government

• 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.
• In November 2023, Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to the American people” went viral on TikTok and other social media.
• Additionally, the app features a dashboard with statistics on how often the app is opened, how much time is spent browsing it and when the browsing occurs.

TikTok is also able to track information about web users even if they are not users of the TikTok app. Other information collected includes users inferred interests based on the content they view as well as content created by users. 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.

Underage users

ENTERTAINBe entertained and inspired by a global community of creators.Take video creation to the next level with special effects, filters, music, and more. New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster praised the platform for taking a “socially-responsible stance” against gangs. A TikTok spokesperson reiterated the platform’s efforts to countering “violent” and “hateful” organizations’ content and cooperating with police. They have also labeled a potential ban on the app an assault on freedom of speech, including Republican congressmen Rand Paul and Thomas Massie.

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. 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. TikTok has provided a platform for users to create content not only for fun but also for money. 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.

Supported Features

In November 2023, Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to the American people” went viral on TikTok and other social media. The company stated it banned praising Hamas and removed more than 775,000 videos and 14,000 livestreams. The popularity of pro-Palestine content has also been explained by the app’s younger user base, which has shifted its sympathy away from Israel towards the Palestinians. 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.

Privacy Commissioner of Canada

The Wall Street Journal has reported that doctors experienced a surge in reported cases of tics, tied to 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.

• 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 July 2025, Media Matters reported that Google’s Veo 3 text-to-video model for AI-generated content is being used to generate large numbers of dehumanizing and violent videos with racist and antisemitic tropes which are being shared on TikTok.
• 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.
• 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.
• The app has spawned numerous viral trends, Internet celebrities, and music trends around the world.

It also announced that U.S. 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 U.S. data. As a consequence, the Senate Intelligence Committee including U.S. lawmakers Mark Warner and Marco Rubio called for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate ByteDance and whether TikTok had misled them.

TikTok responded by taking down videos with content that violated their community guidelines. 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 2019, TikTok allowed creators to embed merchandise sale links into their videos. 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). TikTok merged with Musical.ly on 2 August 2018 with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok.

Russian invasion of Ukraine

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. 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. TikTok announced a “family safety mode” in February 2020 for parents to be able to control their children’s presence on the app. Users also can set specific videos to either “public”, “friends only”, or “private” regardless if the account is private or not.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

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. In 2019, The Guardian reported that TikTok had censored videos of topics not favored by the Chinese government. 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. NBC reported that videos using the hashtags ‘#plasticsurgery’ and ‘#lipfiller’ had amassed a combined 26 billion views on the platform.

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. 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.

While Beijing preferred TikTok remain under ByteDance’s control, the sale could happen through a competitive process or with U.S. government involvement. 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 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. 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.” 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. While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately.

In response to the allegations, the company noted that they were committed to allowing employees “support and flexibility”. Another employee noted that working at the company caused her to seek marriage therapy and lose an unhealthy amount of weight. One female worker complained that the company did not allow her adequate time to change her feminine hygiene product because of back-to-back meetings. The company has a stated policy of working from 10 AM to 7 PM five days per week (63 hours per week), but employees noted that it was encouraged for employees to work after hours.

Competition with other platforms

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 vegas casino app like BBC One/Two are more trusted at 82%, according to a report by UK regulator Ofcom. 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. 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. In July 2025, Media Matters reported that Google’s Veo 3 text-to-video model for AI-generated content is being used to generate large numbers of dehumanizing and violent videos with racist and antisemitic tropes which are being shared on TikTok. In October 2019, TikTok removed about two dozen accounts that were responsible for posting ISIL propaganda and execution videos on the app.

Enjoy an endless stream of short videos on things you love most. From your morning coffee to your evening commute, TikTok has the videos to make your day. Discover videos from around the world and create your own with easy-to-use tools to capture your life. TikTok had earlier drawn criticism for hosting content by organized crime groups promoting the gang lifestyle and fights. 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.

Trovo – Live Stream & Games

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.

There were also multiple conspiracy theories that the government is involved with the spread of 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. The platform has also been used to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, such as clips from Plandemic. The video has been put on TikTok’s blacklist, which detects it before being uploaded. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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! According to an investigation published in September 2025 by Moldovan newspaper Ziarul de Gardă, before the 2025 Moldovan parliamentary election, hundreds of accounts with false identities were created to spread Russian propaganda in TikTok and Facebook.

There is insufficient public evidence to show that American user data has been accessed by or shared with the PRC government, with some claims reportedly exaggerated. Many moderators say the company’s content policies are ineffective, and digital pimps exploit underage users on the large. Doctors suggested that the cause may be a social one as users who consumed content showcasing various tics would sometimes develop tics of their own, akin to mass psychogenic illness. Many were also concerned with the app affecting users’ attention spans due to the short-form nature of the content. ByteDance responded by adding a kids-only mode to TikTok which blocks the upload of videos, the building of user profiles, direct messaging, and commenting on others’ videos, while still allowing the viewing and recording of content. 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.