TikTok’s rise from a niche video-sharing app to a global social media giant has been widely scrutinized, particularly in relation to its relationship with China.
Some governments have banned the app from their devices for fear that the data could be viewed by officials in Beijing, and the United States is now trying to force its Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its valuable assets.
So, is TikTok a spying tool for Beijing, a fun video sharing app, or both?
Trapped
Global action against TikTok began in earnest in India in 2020.
It is one of the apps China has banned after deadly clashes on the border between India and China, with New Delhi saying it was defending its sovereignty.
In the same year, US President Donald Trump threatened to ban and accuse TikTok of spying for China, an idea that has already taken hold in Washington.
TikTok has admitted that ByteDance employees in China accessed American account details but has denied handing over the data to Chinese authorities.
The company is trying to ease fears about data in the United States and the European Union, promising to store local user data on local servers.
But the US federal government and the European Commission have now banned the app from their employees’ devices.
And the US is pushing harder, threatening to ban the app outright unless TikTok splits from ByteDance – echoing threats made by Trump.
One billion users
The ban has not stopped the growth of TikTok
With more than one billion active users, it is the sixth most used social platform in the world, according to marketing agency We Are Social.
Although it lags behind the long-dominant trio of Meta, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, the growth among young people far outstrips its competitors.
Almost a third of TikTok users are between 10 and 19 years old, according to agency Wallaroo.
Rising rapidly, they earned more than $11 billion in ad revenue last year, a three-fold increase in one year.
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TikTok’s competitors were quick to copy the short video format and keep scrolling, but to no avail.
The author appealed
TikTok’s editing features and powerful algorithms have been ahead of the game, attracting the attention of creators and influencers.
But these algorithms are vague and often accused of directing users into silos of digital content.
TikTok and ByteDance employees also manually increase the number of views on certain content, with executives reportedly admitting that they increased content related to last year’s World Cup and Taylor Swift’s debut on the platform.
TikTok says manual promotion only affects a small portion of recommended videos.
Disinformation
The application is often accused of spreading disinformation, putting users in danger with dangerous “challenge” videos, and allowing pornography, even though it is supposed to prohibit muteness.
French news site Numerama reported on a recent TikTok “trend” that involved posting penis photos.
Several children have also reportedly died while trying to replicate a challenge called a blackout, which involves the user holding their breath until they die.
And about a fifth of videos on topical issues such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were found to be fake or misleading, according to a study by the disinformation group NewsGuard.
AFP, along with more than a dozen fact-checking organizations, is paid by TikTok to verify videos that may contain false information. The video was removed by TikTok if the information was shown to be false by the AFP team.