What is TikTok?
TikTok is a video-sharing platform owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. It is known as Douyin in China, which was launched in 2016 in China and became extremely popular in a short time. Outside of China, the app was launched in 2017. It is the most popular app in Asian countries.
There are 800 million active monthly users on TikTok worldwide. Also, TikTok is the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store with 33 million downloads in total.
It attracts many young people. About 41% of the TikTok users are between 16 and 24. Many influencers are under 18 years old, including Charli D’Amolio, who is only 16 years old and has about 90 million followers on the platform.
Meanwhile, TikTok also attracts celebrities and influencers on other platforms. For example, Will Smith posted his first TikTok video on Oct. 2, 2019. He has been a TikToker for about a year and has 37.5 million followers.
TikTok may be one of the most controversial platforms in the U.S. The Trump administration is considering banning TikTok because they are worried that the Chinese government will steal Americans’ information through this platform. However, ByteDance refused to admit this and said TikTok is not a tool for censorship.
Because of the uncertainty of the TikTok’s future, many creators call on fans to follow them on other platforms. Also, some people posted videos that taught people how to use TikTok after it gets banned. In this way, creators in the U.S. can still use TikTok to generate more creative content.
To recap, despite controversial, TikTok is still one of the most popular platforms and continues attracting people from all over the world. Even though it may be banned in the U.S., most creators still can find other ways to use TikTok and communicate with their followers.
Sources I use as reference:
Larissa Gao 