TikTok’s algorithm, recognized by The New York Times in 2020 as one of the most advanced for shaping user experiences and social interactions, stands out from traditional social media. Jasmine Enberg, a principal social media analyst at eMarketer, observes that launching Notes as a separate app, instead of as a new feature in TikTok, may be done in response to regulatory and consumer scrutiny. Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day. Shop right from shoptab, videos or LIVEs without leaving the app, track your orders with ease, and enjoy a safe, secure shopping and transaction process.■ Obtain access to LIVE benefits to better interact with hosts! Let yourself be inspired.■ Add your favorite music or sound to your videos for freeEasily edit your videos with millions of free music clips and sounds. Take your videos to the next level with special effects, filters, music, and more.
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- In 2020, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was used in a skating video and a recreation by Mick Fleetwood.
- In a November 2022 update to its European privacy policy, TikTok stated that its global corporate group employees from China and other countries could gain remote access to the user information of accounts from Europe based on “demonstrated need”.
- 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.
- Furthermore, The Wall Street Journal in 2021 highlighted its superiority over other social media platforms in understanding users’ preferences and emotions.
- In April 2023, the ICO imposed a £12.7 million fine on TikTok for misusing children’s data.
The users had shared on TikTok an article published by celebscritic.com alleging that K. TikTok partnered with the National Association of Secretaries of State to give accurate local information to users. TikTok removed some of these videos and has generally added links to accurate COVID-19 information on videos with tags related to the pandemic. Although they were removed by TikTok after the report, mixing audio remains an effective way to evade content moderation on many platforms. In September 2024, Sky News reported that clips of Adolf Hitler’s speeches with added music were attracting high levels of engagement on TikTok.
- Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people’s faces for more videos of them, along with other features such as buying, booking hotels, and making geo-tagged reviews.
- Out of TikTok’s top 100 male creators, a 2022 analysis reported 67% were white, with 54% having near-perfect facial symmetry.
- Doctors suggested that the cause may be a social one as users who consumed content showcasing various tics would sometimes develop tics of their own, akin to mass psychogenic illness.
- This helps users find new content and creators reach new audiences, in contrast to other social networks that base recommendations on the interactions and relationships between users.
- In April 2020, the government of India asked TikTok to remove users posting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people’s faces for more videos of them, along with other features such as buying, booking hotels, and making geo-tagged reviews. While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately. 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. The popularity of TikTok has allowed viral trends in food, fashion, and music to take off and increase the platform’s cultural impact worldwide.
Supported Features
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 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.
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.
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.
Addiction and mental health
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.
Privacy and security concerns
In Malaysia, TikTok is used by some users to engage in hate speech against race and religion especially mentioning the 13 May incident after the 2022 election. TikTok has since released tougher parental controls to filter out inappropriate content and to ensure they can provide sufficient protection and security. As TikTok has gained popularity among young children, and the popularity of extremist and hateful content is growing, calls for tighter restrictions on their flexible boundaries have been made. Some videos were shown to expressly promote Holocaust denial and told viewers to take up arms and fight in the name of white supremacy and the swastika.
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.
She noted that the company was potentially violating the GDPR which requires the company to provide different services and different protections for children. In July 2025, the DPC opened a new investigation into TikTok for unauthorized transfers of user data to China. In April 2025, the Ireland DPC fined TikTok over €500 million for illegally sending European user data to China. In September 2023, the DPC fined TikTok €345 million for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) vis-à-vis the mishandling of children data.
On 22 January 2021, the Italian Data Protection Authority demanded that TikTok temporarily suspend Italian users whose age could not be established. Comment sections of “sexy” videos, such as young girls dancing in revealing clothes, were found to contain requests for nude pictures. In March 2023, TikTok announced default screen time limits for users under the age of 18.
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.
Under the agreement reached, it is guaranteed that Americans will be protected on the social network TikTok through “data ruhtinas protection,” “content oversight,” and “algorithm security.” According to a 2020 article in The New York Times, Central Intelligence Agency analysts determined that while it is possible the Chinese government could obtain user information from the app, there was no evidence it had done so. Women in Kenya reported earning money through TikTok Lives, where coded sexual slang and emoji gifts facilitated transactions, with explicit content often delivered via other platforms. Many of the TikTok videos covering the letter were critical of bin Laden, and media coverage had exaggerated its significance while elevating the virality of the letter.