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TikTok

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This article is about the mobile app. For the song, see Tik Tok (song). For other uses, see Tick tock (disambiguation).

TikTok
Developer(s)ByteDance
Initial releaseSeptember 2016; 8 years ago (2016-09)
Stable release
11.5.3 / 29 May 2019
Operating systemiOS, Android
Size308.3 MB (iOS)[1]
80.19 MB (Android)[2]
Available in33 languages[3]
List of languages
English, Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Cebuano, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Korean, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
TypeVideo sharing
LicenseFreeware
Websitetiktok.com (English)
douyin.com (Chinese)
Douyin (TikTok)
Chinese抖音
Literal meaningvibrating sound
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinDǒuyīn

TikTok is an iOS and Android media app for creating and sharing short videos. The app was launched in 2017 by ByteDance, for markets outside of China. ByteDance has previously launched Douyin for the China market (Chinese: 抖音; pinyin: Dǒuyīn; literally: 'vibrating sound') in September 2016. TikTok and Douyin use the same software, but maintain separate networks to comply with Chinese censorship restrictions. The application allows users to create short music videos of 3 to 15 seconds[4][5] and short looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds. It is a leading short video platform in Asia, United States, and other parts of the world.[6] TikTok is not available in China and its servers are based in countries where the app is available.[7]

In 2018, the application gained popularity and became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018.[8][9] As of 2018, it is available in over 150 markets, and in 75 languages. In February 2019, TikTok, together with Douyin, hit one billion downloads globally, excluding Android installs in China.[10]

History

Evolution

Douyin was launched by ByteDance in China in September 2016.[11] Douyin was developed in 200 days, and within a year got 100 million users, with more than 1 billion videos viewed every day.[12][13] TikTok was launched in the international market in September 2017.[14] On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked #1 among free mobile app downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries.[15]

TikTok has been downloaded about 80 million times in the United States, and 800 million times worldwide, according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower that excludes Android users in China.[16] Celebrities including Jimmy Fallon and Tony Hawk have joined the app in November 2018.[17][18]

Merging with musical.ly

On 9 November 2017, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, spent up to $1 billion to purchase musical.ly, a startup based in Shanghai with an office in Santa Monica, California, owning a popular social media platform targeting the US teenage market.[19][20] Looking forward to leveraging the US digital platform’s young user base, TikTok merged with musical.ly on 2 August 2018 to create a larger video community, with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok.[20][21][22]

Expansion in other markets

As of 2018, TikTok is now available in over 150 markets, and in 75 languages.[23][24] TikTok was downloaded more than 104 million times on Apple's App store during the full first half of 2018, according to data provided to CNBC by Sensor Tower, an app analytics platform based in San Francisco. It surpassed Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to become the world's most downloaded iOS app for that time period.[25][26]

Douyin

As a separate app from TikTok, Douyin is available from the developer's website and has maintained the same app title since its launch in September 2016.[27] Part of its popularity is attributable to its marketing campaigns, launching several activities with Chinese celebrities to engage their fans' interest. For example, its marketing campaign in 2018 Spring Festival Gala alone brought an increase of 70 million daily active users.[28] In February 2018, Douyin launched a partnership with Modern Sky to monetize music.[29]

Features

The TikTok mobile app allows users to create a short video of themselves which often feature music in the background, can be sped up, slowed down or edited with a filter.[30] To create a music video with the app, users can choose background music from a wide variety of music genres, edit with a filter and record a 15-second video with speed adjustments before uploading it to share with others on TikTok or other social platforms.[31]

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.[32] Its "duet" feature allows users to film a video aside another video.[33]

The app allows users to set their accounts as "private". Such accounts' content remains visible to TikTok, but is blocked from TikTok users who the account holder has not authorised to view their content.[34] Users can choose whether any other user, or only their "friends", may interact with them through the app via comments, messages, or "react" or "duet" videos.[35][34]

Artificial intelligence

TikTok employs artificial intelligence to analyse user’s interests and preferences through their interactions with the content, and display a personalized content feed to each user.[36][37]

Reception

TikTok became the world's most downloaded app on Apple's App Store in the first half of 2018 with an estimated 104 million downloads, surpassing the downloads recorded by PUBG Mobile, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram in the same period.[25]

The app has spawned numerous viral trends and internet celebrities around the world, propelled songs to fame, and is known to be popular among celebrities due to its popularity and social influence.[38][39][40][41][42][43] The most well-known viral TikTok meme in the Western world is "hit or miss", from a snippet of iLOVEFRiDAY's "Mia Khalifa" (2018), which has been used in over four million TikTok videos, and helped introduce TikTok to a larger Western audience.[44] The platform has received some criticism, however, for its lack of royalties towards artists whose music is used on their platform.[44]

Privacy, cyberbullying and addiction concerns

Similar to other platforms,[45] Journalists in several countries have raised privacy concerns about the app, not least because it is popular with children and may expose them to sexual predators.[45][46][47][48]

Several users have reported endemic cyberbullying on TikTok,[49][50] including racist and anti-Semitic abuse.[51]

Some users may find it hard to stop using TikTok.[52] In April 2018, an addiction-reduction feature was added to Douyin.[52] This encourages users to take a break every 90 minutes.[52] Later in 2018, the feature was rolled out to the TikTok app.

National security concerns

In January 2019, an investigation by the American think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics described TikTok as a "Huawei-sized problem" that poses a national security threat to the West,[53][54][55] noting the app's popularity with Western users including armed forces personnel, and its ability to convey location, image and biometric data to its Chinese parent company, which is legally unable to refuse to share data to the Chinese government.[54][55] TikTok’s parent company ByteDance told Bloomberg that TikTok is not available in China and its data is stored outside of China.[56]

Censorship

On 3 July 2018, TikTok was banned in Indonesia, after the Indonesian government accused it of promulgating "pornography, inappropriate content and blasphemy."[57][58][59][60][61] Shortly afterwards, TikTok pledged to task 20 staff with censoring TikTok content in Indonesia,[58] and the ban was lifted on 11 July 2018.[57]

In November 2018, the Bangladeshi government blocked the TikTok app's internet access.[62]

Also in 2018, Douyin was reprimanded by Chinese media watchdogs for showing "unacceptable" content, such as videos depicting adolescent pregnancies.[61]

In January 2019, the Chinese government said that it would start to hold app developers like ByteDance responsible for user content shared via apps such as Douyin,[63] and listed 100 types of content that the Chinese government would censor.[64][65]

In February 2019, several Indian politicians called for TikTok to be banned or more tightly regulated, after concerns emerged about sexually explicit content, cyberbullying, and deepfakes.[66]

There are a variety of trends within TikTok, including memes, lip-synced songs, and comedies. Duets, a feature that allows users to add their own video to an existing video with the original content's audio, have led to most of these trends.

Trends are showed on the explore page on TikTok, or the page with the search logo. The page enlists the trending hashtags and challenges among the app. Some include #posechallenge, #filterswitch, #makeeverysecondcount, #wannalisten, #pillowchallenge, #furrywar, #hitormiss, and more.

Most followed accounts on TikTok

Main article: List of most-followed TikTok accounts

Most followed accounts on Douyin

This list contains the top 10 accounts that had the most followers on Douyin, which is the Chinese version of TikTok and mostly used in China.[67]

Top Douyin users (last updated 21 May 2019)
Rank User ID Followers
(millions) 		Country or region
1 Dilraba Dilmurat (迪丽热巴) @274110380 54.4  CHN
2 Chen He (陈赫) @191433445 54.0  CHN
3 Liu Erdou (会说话的刘二豆) @erdou 46.2  CHN
4 Yi Chan (一禅小和尚) @yichan6666 43.6  CHN
5 Angelababy (杨颖) @228.228 39.6  HKG
6 Chen Xiang (陈翔六点半) @cxldb001 36.2  CHN
7 Modern Brothers (摩登兄弟) @MD4528 35.6  CHN
8 He Jiong (何炅) @he.jiong 34.8  CHN
9 M Brother (M哥) @185625797 33.3  CHN
10 Feng Timo (冯提莫) @Fengtimo1219 31.4  CHN

Indonesian block

Indonesia temporarily blocked the TikTok app on 3 July 2018 amid public concern about illegal contents such as pornography and blasphemy. The app was unblocked one week later after making various changes, including removing negative content, opening a government liaison office, and implementing age restrictions and security mechanisms.[68]

Tencent lawsuits

Tencent's WeChat platform has been accused of blocking Douyin’s videos.[69][70] In April 2018, Douyin sued Tencent and accused it of spreading false and damaging information on its WeChat platform, demanding RMB 1 million in compensation and an apology. In June 2018, Tencent filed a lawsuit against Toutiao and Douyin in a Beijing court, alleging they had repeatedly defamed Tencent with negative news and damaged its reputation, seeking a nominal sum of RMB 1 in compensation and a public apology.[71] In response, Toutiao filed a complaint the following day against Tencent for allegedly unfair competition and asking for RMB 90 million in economic losses.[72]

US COPPA fines

On 27 February 2019, the United States Federal Trade Commission fined ByteDance US$5.7 million for collecting information from minors under the age of 13 in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.[73] 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 other's videos, while still allowing the viewing and recording of content.[74]

Brief ban in India

On 3 April 2019, the Madras High Court while hearing a PIL had asked the Government of India to ban the app, citing that it "encourages pornography". The court also noted that children using the app were at risk of being targeted by sexual predators. The court further asked broadcast media not to telecast any of those videos from the app. The spokesperson for TikTok stated that they were abiding by local laws and were awaiting the copy of the court order before they take action.[75] On 17 April, both Google and Apple removed TikTok from Google Play and the App Store.[76] As the court refused to reconsider the ban, the company stated that they had removed over 6 million videos that violated their content policy and guidelines.[77]

On 25 April 2019, the ban was lifted after a court in Tamil Nadu reversed its order of prohibiting downloads of the app from the App Store and Google Play, following a plea from TikTok developer Bytedance Technology.[78][79] India's TikTok ban might have cost the app 15 million new users.[80]

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Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TikTok&oldid=900187101"