Some of the recordings were made during consultations with Booz Allen Hamilton, a US government contractor. An article in the law insists that all organizations and citizens shall “support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.” Analysts 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.
I’m really gonna miss tiktok
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 ruhtinas Reuters and the STOP FALS! That month, Bloomberg reported, citing European officials and documents of undisclosed origin, that Russia had prepared a plan to interfere in the election, which would have included a disinformation campaign in both Romanian and Russian on Facebook, Telegram and TikTok. 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 were also multiple conspiracy theories that the government is involved with the spread of the pandemic.
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. 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.
In February 2023, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, along with its counterparts in Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec, launched an investigation into TikTok’s data collection practices. 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.
- A March 2021 study by the Citizen Lab found that TikTok did not collect data beyond the industry norms, what its policy stated, or without additional user permission.
- Many other countries limit TikTok’s use on government-issued devices for security or privacy reasons.
- In January 2019, TikTok allowed creators to embed merchandise sale links into their videos.
- 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”.
- In June 2020, TikTok users and K-pop fans “claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets” for Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma through communication on TikTok, contributing to “rows of empty seats” at the event.
- An article in the law insists that all organizations and citizens shall “support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.” Analysts differ in their assessments of the data collection risks.
TikTok Studio
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. In October 2021, following the 2021 Facebook leak and controversies about social media ethics, a bipartisan group of United States lawmakers also pressed TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat on questions of data privacy and moderation for age-appropriate content. Sponsored content is not as prevalent on the platform as it is on other social media apps, but brands and influencers still can make as much as they would if not more in comparison to other platforms. Furthermore, The Wall Street Journal in 2021 highlighted its superiority over other social media platforms in understanding users’ preferences and emotions. 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. Since its launch, TikTok has become one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, using recommendation algorithms to connect content creators and influencers with new audiences.
Product Personalization
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. 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
The company’s survey reported that nearly 50% of social media users find it stressful to watch a video longer than a minute and a third of users watch videos at double speed. Musical.ly was a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos, initially released in August 2014. Numerous social media users, including Americans, expressed their opposition to US foreign policy by sharing the resurfaced copies of the letter and its contents.
TikTok has taken measures to remove and prevent access to content displaying the trend. The song rose to popularity when musician Daniel Mertzlufft composed a backing track to the song. In 2020, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was used in a skating video and a recreation by Mick Fleetwood.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Silicon Valley executives met with US lawmakers to build an “anti-China alliance” before TikTok CEO’s congressional hearing in March 2023. In March 2024, The Information reported that it is an open secret among investors that TikTok loses billions of dollars annually. According to sources for The Wall Street Journal, the personnel move led to concerns from some TikTok employees and was reported to the office of US senator Ted Cruz for further investigation.
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. Other creators rose to fame after the platform merged with musical.ly on 2 August 2018. 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.
To combat misinformation in the 2022 midterm election in the US, TikTok announced a midterms Elections Center available in-app to users in 40 different languages. It reported that in the second half of 2020, over 340,000 videos in the US about election misinformation and 50,000 videos of COVID-19 misinformation were removed. In April 2020, the government of India asked TikTok to remove users posting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. TikTok responded by taking down videos with content that violated their community guidelines.
- A data scientist said US user data were emailed to ByteDance workers in China to identify viewer interests.
- The company posted job listings for staff for a series of order fulfillment centers in the US and is reportedly planning to start the new live shopping business before the end of the year.
- TikTok was also accused by Malaysia’s minister of communications, Fahmi Fadzil of suppressing pro-Palestinian content.
- TikTok has faced criticism for transferring European user data to servers in the United States.
- 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.
- 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.
This led many creators to stop creating new content which they were not already contractually obligated to create. In December 2022, it was reported that a cosmetic surgery procedure known as buccal fat removal was going viral on the platform. TikTok has banned the advertising of cosmetic surgeries on the platform but cosmetic surgeons are still able to reach large audiences using unpaid photo and video posts. 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.
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. 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.