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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. Daily hours of entertainment screen media (Social Medias) may displace healthy behaviors such as socializing face to face, chores, hobbies, homework, family meals time, exercise, and sufficient sleep. A trend making fun of autism eventually created a huge backlash, even on the platform itself, and the company ended up removing the hashtag altogether. In February 2024, the European Commission launched an investigation into TikTok for potential violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA), involving content aiming at children and advertising transparency.
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TikTok is THE destination for mobile videos. In early 2026, the United States and China approved a deal transferring operational control of TikTok’s US business to a joint venture led by Oracle and Silver Lake, following a 2024 US law requiring ByteDance to divest the platform over national security concerns. New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster praised the platform for taking a “socially-responsible stance” against gangs. A TikTok spokesperson reiterated the platform’s efforts to countering “violent” and “hateful” organizations’ content and cooperating with police.
- 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.
- Since 2021, TikTok has created “election centres” on its platform leading up to European Parliament elections.
- In April 2023, the ICO imposed a £12.7 million fine on TikTok for misusing children’s data.
- Furthermore, The Wall Street Journal in 2021 highlighted its superiority over other social media platforms in understanding users’ preferences and emotions.
- In 2020, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was used in a skating video and a recreation by Mick Fleetwood.
- 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.
Data Linked to You
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 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.
- 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.
- TikTok has come under scrutiny due to data privacy violations, mental health concerns, misinformation, offensive content, addictive algorithm, and its role during the Gaza war.
- 7521, which would ban TikTok entirely unless it was divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
- TikTok partnered with the National Association of Secretaries of State to give accurate local information to users.
- TikTok announced a “family safety mode” in February 2020 for parents to be able to control their children’s presence on the app.
- A TikTok spokesperson reiterated the platform’s efforts to countering “violent” and “hateful” organizations’ content and cooperating with police.
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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.
Platform
TikTok said that the tracking method suggested by the report would not be feasible because precise GPS information is not collected by the platform. In October 2022, Forbes reported that a team at ByteDance planned to surveil certain US citizens for undisclosed reasons. A third party will oversee the cybersecurity policies, data flows, and personnel access independently of TikTok. Another said TikTok had to employ better data collection practices than Meta or Google due to the scrutiny it received. TikTok responded by saying that Project Texas already is a re-engineering of the app and that the former employee left in 2022 before the project specifications were finalized. In March 2023, a former employee of the company said Project Texas did not go far enough and that a complete “re-engineering” would be needed.
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.
Users also can set specific videos to either “public”, “friends only”, or “private” regardless if the account is private or not. Content is ruhtinas curated by TikTok’s artificial intelligence depending on the content a user liked, interacted with, or searched. On 18 April 2024, Notes first released to users in Canada and Australia for limited testing. Many platforms and services, including YouTube Shorts, began to imitate TikTok’s format and recommendation page.
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.
Content promoting cosmetic surgery is popular on TikTok and has spawned several viral trends on the platform. Women’s apparel can roughly be divided into petite, straight, and plus sizes, leaving gaps in between. “Midsize” fashion gained greater exposure on TikTok after many creators opened up about not able to find clothing sizes that fit them well. These hashtags have amassed 4.6 million and 4.5 million posts, respectively, according to the platform. Food-related content on TikTok is often categorized under the hashtags #TikTokFood and #FoodTok. In 2023, a trend emerged where streamers acted as if they were video-game characters following prompts from their viewers.
In June 2023, TikTok confirmed that some financial information, such as tax forms and Social Security numbers, of American content creators are stored in China. In May 2023, a former ByteDance employee filed a wrongful termination lawsuit alleging that Hong Kong users’ device information and communications, particularly those of demonstrators in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, were accessed by Chinese Communist Party members in 2018. Keeping user data within the United States became the motivation behind TikTok’s Project Texas. 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.
In June 2022, TikTok introduced the ability to set a maximum uninterrupted screen time allowance, after which the app blocks off the ability to navigate the feed. Insomnia is considered a strong mediator between screen media time and mental health symptoms which implies that engaging in screen time pushes out adequate sleep and leads to decreased mental health. Their short attention spans posed a challenge for TikTok to pivot towards longer content formats.
It hosts user-submitted videos, which range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. The developer, TikTok Ltd., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. ■ Explore videos, just one scroll awayWatch all types of videos, from Comedy, Gaming, DIY, Food, Sports, Memes, and Pets, to Oddly Satisfying, ASMR, and everything in between. TikTok offers you real, interesting, and fun videos that will make your day. Grotuxiv