17 Sep

LE PARC

It covers the “top 4% of all videos on TikTok” and is only available to creators with more than 100,000 followers. In October 2021, TikTok launched a test feature that allows users to directly tip certain creators. Private content remains visible to TikTok but is blocked from TikTok users who the account holder has not authorized to view their content. TikTok’s algorithm leverages this insight to present similar content, creating an environment that users often find hard to disengage from. While typical platforms focus on active user actions like likes, clicks, or follows, TikTok monitors a wider array of behaviors during video viewing.
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. 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.”

Privacy and security concerns

On 21 December 2024, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced that the Albanian government will shut down TikTok in 2025 for at least a year, following a deadly incident in November 2024 in which a teenager fatally stabbed another teen after a dispute that began on the platform. A Meta spokesperson defended the effort, saying that all platforms, including TikTok, should face equal scrutiny. An investigation in 2025 found that TikTok was profiting from sexual livestreams in Kenya involving minors, with teenagers as young as 15 using the platform to solicit explicit content. The Guardian website removed the letter after displaying it for more than 20 years, and TikTok began issuing takedowns of videos featuring the letter. US lawmakers wanting to ban TikTok accused the platform of pushing pro-Hamas and pro-Palestine content. Several former employees of the company have claimed of poor workplace conditions, including the start of the workweek on Sunday to cooperate with Chinese time zones and excessive workload.
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. Many other countries limit TikTok’s use on government-issued devices for security or privacy reasons.

Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.
The users had shared on TikTok an article published by celebscritic.com alleging that K.
Their short attention spans posed a challenge for TikTok to pivot towards longer content formats.
While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately.
Other human rights activists have also said that their TikTok videos discussing human rights violations of the Uyghurs have been taken down.
In October 2020, the e-commerce platform Shopify added TikTok to its portfolio of social media platforms, allowing online merchants to sell their products directly to consumers on TikTok.
The study compares data from before TikTok even existed to show the app has fewer hashtags about historically sensitive topics, distorting the findings.

On 22 January 2026, US President Donald Trump and TikTok announced that the company had joined a joint venture, which will run as an independent entity while operate under defined safeguards that protect national security for US users. A new subsidiary, TikTok US Data Security Inc. (USDS), was created to manage user data, software code, back-end systems, and content moderation. 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 US 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 “US 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.

More by TikTok Ltd.

In 2020, TikTok updated their terms of service to ban content that promotes “premium sexual content”, impacting a large number of adult content creators. TikTok is regularly used by sex workers to promote pornographic content sold on platforms such as OnlyFans. In 2020, digital media companies such as Group Nine Media and Global used TikTok increasingly, focusing on tactics such as brokering partnerships with TikTok influencers and developing branded content campaigns. 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.
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.
Civil society groups warn that these apps push users down “rabbit holes” and then surround them in an “information cocoon”. The company will no longer send push notifications after 9 pm to users aged between 13 and 15. 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.

Plans to sell TikTok’s US operations

In September 2021, the Ireland Data Protection Commission (DPC) launched investigations into TikTok concerning the protection of minors’ data and transfers of personal data to China. The US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia reportedly subpoenaed information from ByteDance regarding its surveillance of journalists on TikTok. In December 2022, ByteDance confirmed after internal investigation that the data of two journalists and their close contacts had been accessed by its employees from China and the United States.

Graphic content

In 2025, a Canadian investigation found that TikTok had collected sensitive personal data from children in violation of federal privacy laws. In March 2025, the ICO opened another investigation into TikTok concerning its use of children’s personal information to recommend content to them. In April 2023, the ICO imposed a £12.7 million fine on TikTok for misusing children’s data.

TikTok Studio

The study compares data from before TikTok even existed to show the app has fewer hashtags about historically sensitive topics, distorting the findings. 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.

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.
NBC reported that videos using the hashtags ‘#plasticsurgery’ and ‘#lipfiller’ had amassed a combined 26 billion views on the platform.
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.
Some adult content creators have found a way to game TikTok’s recommendation algorithm by posting riddles, attracting a large number of viewers that struggled to solve them.
In the article, it was noted that plastic surgeons were some of the earliest adopters of social media in the medical field and many had been recognized as influencers on the platform.
In September 2024, TikTok removed the accounts of Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik.

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 ruhtinas 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. 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.