TikTok has since released tougher parental controls to filter out inappropriate content and to ensure they can provide sufficient protection and security. 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. 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. The study compares data from before TikTok even existed to show the app has fewer hashtags about historically sensitive topics, distorting the findings.
Product Personalisation
Several former employees of the company have claimed of poor workplace conditions, including the start of the workweek on Sunday to cooperate with Chinese timezones 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. A 2025 meta-analysis found that use of TikTok was correlated with symptoms of anxiety and depression, with stronger links in females and users under 24 years old. Some users were able to circumvent TikTok filters by writing in code or using unconventional spelling.
- Enjoy an endless stream of short videos on things you love most.
- The widespread popularity of these trends has influenced various aspects of society, including interest in cooking among younger generations, discussions about body image, the marketing of food products on social media, and temporary food shortages.
- TikTok is regularly used by sex workers to promote pornographic content sold on platforms such as OnlyFans.
- 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.
- 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.
- In 2022, it was reported that a trend called “de-influencing” had become popular on the platform as a backlash to influencer marketing.
- Another employee noted that working at the company caused her to seek marriage therapy and lose an unhealthy amount of weight.
Supported Features
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. 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 the United States, Jimmy Fallon, Tony Hawk, and other celebrities began using the app in 2018. On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked first among free application downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries. Employees have reported that multiple overlaps exist between TikTok and ByteDance in terms of personnel management and product development. Its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, is owned by founders and Chinese investors, other global investors, and employees.
European Union
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. While TikTok remains accessible to users in most countries, a minority of countries (including India and Afghanistan) have implemented full or partial bans. It hosts user-submitted videos, which range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. ADD MUSICAdd your favorite sound to your videos with millions of music clips and sounds. CUSTOMISEOur integrated editing tools allow you to easily edit your videos.Trim, cut, merge and duplicate video clips without leaving the app.
Existing sellers on FeetFinder said that the videos often misrepresented how "easy" it is to make money from posting feet pictures. In 2022, it was reported that a trend called "de-influencing" had become popular on the platform as a backlash to influencer marketing. TikTok reportedly made as much as a 70% commission on some of them, a figure that the company disputed.
- 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.
- In April 2025, the Ireland DPC fined TikTok over €500 million for illegally sending European user data to China.
- The company says that it employs access control and approval process overseen by a U.S.-based team.
- 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 Ministry of Education (Taiwan) has warned against the harmful impact of TikTok and related app RedNote on body image and ensuing self harm related to weight loss especially in teenagers.
- TikTok executives and representatives have noted and made aware to advertisers on the platform that users have poor attention spans.
Follow Michael Bublé on TikTok
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. In June 2022, BuzzFeed News reported that leaked audio recordings of internal TikTok meetings reveal employees in China had access to overseas data, including a "master admin" who could see "everything". TikTok said it does not give information to China's government and "U.S. user data" is stored within the country with backups in Singapore. Lawmakers also "hammered" TikTok about whether consumer data could be turned over to the Chinese government through ByteDance, its parent company in China.
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. 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. Charli D'Amelio remained the most-followed individual on the platform until she was surpassed by Khaby Lame on 23 June 2022.
TikTok has also received criticism for enabling children to purchase coins which they can send to other users. TikTok executives and representatives have noted and made aware to advertisers on the platform that users have poor attention spans. Nonetheless, several users have reported cyberbullying via features such as Duet or React, which is used to interact with followers. In August 2022, software engineer and security researcher Felix Krause found that in-app browsers from TikTok and other platforms contained codes for keylogger functionality but did not have the means to further investigate whether any data was tracked or recorded. The data included IP addresses, which can be used to approximate a user's location. A new subsidiary, TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. (USDS), was created to manage user data, software code, back-end systems, and content moderation.
Viral trends
The terms said that user authorization would be requested if local law demands such. Since 2021, TikTok has created "election centres" on its platform leading up to European Parliament elections. This increased potential Web traffic linked to the riddle posters' accounts on OnlyFans.
On 30 December 2022, President Joe Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, prohibiting the use of the app on devices owned by the federal government, with some exceptions. Recruiters had been using the app to help fill quotas, and some continue to maintain a level of engagement through their personal accounts. On 6 November 2024, Canada ordered TikTok to shut down its offices and subsidiary company (TikTok Technology Canada, Inc.) in the country due to national security concerns, but access to the app was not banned. On 7 March 2025, the shutdown was officially enacted after the Albanian Cabinet cited concerns over the app's role in promoting violence and bullying among children. A Meta spokesperson defended the effort, saying that all platforms, including TikTok, should face equal scrutiny.
Other TikTok creators have spoken out against accepting sponsorship deals indiscriminately and criticized those who posted undisclosed FeetFinder ads. 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.
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. Some of the recordings were made during consultations with Booz Allen Hamilton, a U.S. government contractor. An article in the law insists that all organizations and citizens shall "support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts." Analysts slotrize casino no deposit bonus differ in their assessments of the data collection risks. Concerns have been raised about the potential control and influence of the Chinese government over TikTok's owner, ByteDance, in particular the extraterritorial implications of China's 2017 National Intelligence Law. Experts considered them to be "vague" and their implications "problematic" for the United States due to the country's general lack of robust data privacy laws.
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. This led many creators to stop creating new content which they were not already contractually obligated to create. Some TikTok users criticized the trend for promoting an unobtainable beauty standard.
Data collected by TikTok and other social networks can already be purchased through other means. As of February 2023, at least 32 (of 50) states have announced or enacted bans on state government agencies, employees, and contractors using TikTok on government-issued devices. 7521, which would ban TikTok entirely unless it was divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. 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 U.S. 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.
Republican Party—to coordinate lobbying and media campaigns against TikTok and portray it as "a danger to American children and society". 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.