How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat

How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat

Beginning in 2017, when the Chinese social video app combined with its rival Musical.ly, TikTok has actually grown from a specific niche teenager app into an international innovator.

Author of the short article:

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

David Hamilton

Released Apr 27, 2024Last upgraded 13 minutes ago6 minute checked out

A TikTok indication is shown on their structure in Culver City, Calif., March 11, 2024.
A TikTok indication is shown on their structure in Culver City, Calif., March 11, 2024. Picture by Damian Dovarganes /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO– If it seems like TikTok has actually been around permanently, that’s most likely due to the fact that it has, a minimum of if you’re determining through web time. What’s now in concern is whether it will be around a lot longer and, if so, in what form?

Beginning in 2017, when the Chinese social video app combined with its rival Musical.ly, TikTok has actually grown from a specific niche teenager app into a worldwide innovator. While, obviously, likewise becoming a prospective nationwide security danger, according to U.S. authorities.

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On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed legislation needing TikTok moms and dad ByteDance to offer to a U.S. owner within a year or to close down. It’s unclear whether that law will make it through an anticipated legal obstacle or that ByteDance would consent to offer.

Here’s how TikTok concerned this point:

March 2012

ByteDance is established in China by business owner Zhang Yimin. Its very first hit item is Toutiao, a customized news aggregator for Chinese users.

July 2014

Start-up Musical.ly, later on understood for an eponymous app utilized to publish brief lipsyncing video, is established in China by business owner Alex Zhu.

July 2015

Musical.ly strikes # 1 in the Apple App Store, following a style modification that made the business’s logo design noticeable when users shared their videos.

2016

ByteDance introduces Douyin, a video sharing app for Chinese users. Its appeal influences the business to spin off a variation for foreign audiences called TikTok.

November 2017

ByteDance gets Musical.ly for $1 billion. 9 months later on, ByteDance combines it with TikTok.

Powered by an algorithm that motivates binge-watching, users start to share a wide range of video on the app, consisting of dance relocations, cooking area cooking and different “difficulties” to carry out, record and post acts that variety from major to satirical.

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February 2019

Rap Artist Lil Nas X launches the country-trap tune “Old Town Road” on TikTok, where it goes viral and presses the tune to a record 17 weeks in the # 1 area on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The phenomenon starts a wave of TikTok videos from musical artists who unexpectedly see TikTok as a crucial method to reach fans.

TikTok settles federal charges of breaching U.S. child-privacy laws and accepts pay a $5.7 million fine.

September 2019

The Washington Post reports that while pictures of Hong Kong democracy demonstrations and cops crackdowns prevail on many social networks websites, they are oddly missing on TikTok. The exact same story notes that TikTok posts with the #trump 2020 tag got more than 70 million views.

The business firmly insists that TikTok material small amounts, performed in the U.S., is not accountable and states the app is a location for home entertainment, not politics.

The Guardian reports on internal files that supposedly information how TikTok advises its mediators to erase or restrict the reach of videos discussing subjects conscious China such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and subsequent massacre, Tibetan self-reliance or the approved spiritual group Falun Gong.

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October 2019

U.S. political leaders start to raise alarms about TikTok’s impact, requiring a federal examinations of its Musical.ly acquisition and a nationwide security probe into TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps. That examination starts in November, according to report.

December 2019

The Pentagon advises that all U.S. military workers erase TikTok from all phones, individual and government-issued. Some services prohibit the app on military owned phones. In January, the Pentagon prohibits the app from all military phones.

TikTok ends up being the second-most downloaded app on the planet, according to information from analytics firm SensorTower.

May 2020

Personal privacy groups submit a grievance declaring TikTok is still breaching U.S. child-protection laws and flouting a 2019 settlement contract. The business “takes the concern of securely seriously” and continues to enhance safeguards, it states.

TikTok employs previous Disney executive Kevin Mayer as its ceo in an obvious effort to enhance its U.S. relations. Mayer resigns 3 months later on.

July 2020

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India prohibits TikTok and lots of other Chinese apps in action to a border clash with China.

President Donald Trump states he is thinking about prohibiting TikTok as retaliation for China’s supposed mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

August 2020

Trump problems a sweeping however unclear executive order prohibiting American business from any “deal” with ByteDance and its subsidiaries, consisting of TikTok. Numerous days later on, he releases a 2nd order requiring that ByteDance divest itself of TikTok’s U.S. operations within 90 days.

Microsoft verifies it is checking out acquisition of TikTok. The offer never ever emerges; neither does a comparable overture from Oracle and Walmart. TikTok, on the other hand, takes legal action against the Trump administration for supposed infraction of due procedure in its executive orders.

November 2020

Joe Biden is chosen president. He does not use brand-new policy on TikTok and will not take workplace up until January, however Trump’s strategies to require a sale of TikTok begin to decipher anyhow. The Trump administration extends the due dates it had actually troubled ByteDance and TikTok and ultimately lets them slide completely.

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February 2021

Recently sworn-in President Joe Biden holds off the legal cases including Trump’s strategy to prohibit TikTok, efficiently bringing them to a stop.

September 2021

TikTok reveals it has more than a billion regular monthly active users.

December 2021

A Wall Street Journal report discovers TikTok algorithms can flood teenagers with a gush of hazardous product such as videos advising severe dieting, a type of consuming condition.

February 2022

TikTok reveals brand-new guidelines to prevent the spread of damaging product such as viral scams and promo of consuming conditions.

April 2022

“The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” a job produced by 2 fans of the Netflix program as a TikTok task, wins the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.

TikTok ends up being one of the most downloaded app worldwide, vanquishing Instagram, according to SensorTower information.

June 2022

BuzzFeed reports that China-based ByteDance staff members have actually consistently accessed the nonpublic info of TikTok users, based upon dripped recordings from more than 80 internal TikTok conferences. TikTok reacts with an unclear remark promoting its dedication to security that does not straight deal with the BuzzFeed report.

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TikTok likewise reveals it has actually moved its user information to U.S. servers handled by the U.S. tech company Oracle. That does not avoid fresh alarm amongst U.S. authorities about the danger of Chinese authorities accessing U.S. user information.

December 2022

FBI Director Chris Wrap raises nationwide security issues about TikTok, alerting that Chinese authorities might control the app’s suggestion algorithm for impact operations.

ByteDance likewise stated it fired 4 workers who accessed information on reporters from Buzzfeed News and The Financial Times while trying to locate leakages of personal products about the business.

February 2023

The White House offers federal companies 30 days to make sure TikTok is erased from all government-issued mobile phones. Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission alert that ByteDance might share TikTok user information with China’s authoritarian federal government.

March 2023

Lawmakers barbecue TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at a six-hour congressional hearing where Chew, a local of Singapore, tries to press back on assertions that TikTok and ByteDance are tools of the Chinese federal government.

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January 2024

TikTok stated it was limiting a tool some scientists utilize to evaluate popular videos on the platform.

March 2024

An expense to prohibit TikTok or require its sale to a U.S. business collects steam in Congress. TikTok brings lots of its developers to Washington to inform legislators to withdraw, while stressing modifications the business has actually made to secure user information. TikTok likewise irritates lawmakers by sending out notices to users advising them to “speak out now” or run the risk of seeing TikTok prohibited; users then flood congressional workplaces with calls.

Your House of Representatives passes the TikTok ban-or-sell expense.

April 2024

The Senate does the same, sending out the costs to President Biden, who signs it.

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