Why are there so many fears about a video app? And are they well founded? Here’s what you should know.
It’s likely the most buzzed-about tech company of 2020: TikTok, the social media platform that has launched the careers of musicians, comedians and beauty influencers… not to mention a viral video or three. If you’re a parent of a teen or tween, you likely know exactly what TikTok is, as well as the dance crazes the app tends to spawn. If you follow, or the tech industry, you likely know TikTok for very different reasons. Until this year, TikTok was mostly known for its frenetic, addictive style of content: Short, looping videos that anyone with a smartphone can create and share — think pranks, comedy, political commentary, memes, viral challenges, or just snippets of life that millions of others might relate to. It’s also known for its skyrocketing popularity. But starting in 2019, this 4-year-old company began to spur very different conversations: Is it a privacy risk? Is it a risk to child safety? And most recently: Does it jeopardize America’s national security? It became a focus of the highest offices in the land, including the White House, where President Donald Trump launched an effort that’s America’s love affair with TikTok for good. Here’s what we know, what’s happened so far, and what you might expect in coming months. At its core, TikTok is a video-sharing social-media service owned by Chinese company ByteDance. It offers an app, downloadable on smartphones. Users can upload homemade videos of 3 to 60 seconds, depending on the content. The simplicity of the service, combined with a constant stream of new and often viral videos, has attracted an estimated 700 million users. Three years into its life, in 2019, the app had been downloaded more than 1 billion times worldwide — more than Facebook or Instagram. Entire careers have been launched over TikTok. Connecticut teen Charli D’Amelio began posting dance videos in March 2019. It wasn’t long before she was famous enough to appear in a Super Bowl commercial for Sabra hummus, perform as a dancer at the 2020 NBA All-Star Game, and have a drink named for her at Dunkin’ Donuts. TikTok comic Sarah Cooper has won so much acclaim for her lip-synced imitations of President Donald Trump that she was invited to speak at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Rapper Li’l Nas X owes some of the success of his to TikTok, as do Jason DeRulo and Joshua Nanai for the viral mania that was « Savage Love. » For every person who has found fame on TikTok, there are scads of flash trends, backed by tens of thousands of average users, many of them children or teens. Nigerian comedian Josh Alfred decided to try out a few dry jokes on TikTok in June 2020. The resulting « don’t leave me » challenge launched painfully pun-filled home videos across at least three continents. Other TikTok trends have been less than funny. One dangerous viral challenge, from early 2020, encouraged teens to record themselves sliding pennies into electrical outlets.
