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. Many were also concerned with the app affecting users’ attention spans due to the short-form nature of the content. ByteDance responded by adding a kids-only mode to TikTok which blocks the upload of videos, the building of user profiles, direct messaging, and commenting on others’ videos, while still allowing the viewing and recording of content. In August 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok tracked Android user data, including MAC addresses and IMEIs, with a tactic in violation of Google’s policies. The company said its algorithm tracks interests not identity, and non-LGBT users also view such content.

• Tracking Exposed, a user data rights group, learned of what was likely a technical glitch that became exploited by pro-Russia posters.
• Classic stars are able to connect with younger audiences born decades after a musician’s first debut and across traditional genres.
• In March 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok’s growth in the US had stagnated.
• TikTok creators participating in this trend made videos criticizing products promoted by influencers and asked their audiences not to buy products they did not need.
• It works with Common Sense Networks to check for safety and age appropriateness and with the Poynter Institute for reliability of information.

Restrictions and bans

The deal was completed by January 22, 2026, with investors including Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX, and others including the personal investment entity for Michael Dell will own more than 80% of the new venture, while ByteDance retained 19.9% ownership. The day before the impending ban, California-based conversational search engine company Perplexity AI submitted a bid for a merger with TikTok US. In January 2025, Chinese officials began preliminary talks about potentially selling TikTok’s US operations to Elon Musk if the app faced an impending ban due to national security concerns. In March 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok’s growth in the US had stagnated.

Russian invasion of Ukraine

TikTok said only a few individuals can approve heating in the US and the promoted videos take up less than 0.002% of user feeds. NBC reported that videos using the hashtags ‘#plasticsurgery’ and ‘#lipfiller’ had amassed a combined 26 billion views on the platform. TikTok content creators used a specific audio on their videos while showing how their noses looked before and after having their rhinoplasty surgeries. In the article, it was noted that plastic surgeons were some of the earliest adopters of social media in the medical field and many had been recognized as influencers on the platform.

Contents

In June 2020, TikTok users and K-pop fans “claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets” for Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma through communication on TikTok, contributing to “rows of empty seats” at the event. However, it has received criticism for not paying royalties to artists whose music is used on the platform. TikTok has allowed many music artists to gain a wider audience, often including foreign fans.
On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked first among free application downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries. Employees have reported that multiple overlaps exist between TikTok and ByteDance in terms of personnel management and product development. Its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, is owned by founders and Chinese investors, other global investors, and employees. Many other countries limit TikTok’s use on government-issued devices for security or privacy reasons.
In June 2022, NBC News reported that some of the influencers paid by FeetFinder, a website that sells foot fetish content, did not disclose their videos were ads. In December 2022, NBC News reported in a television segment that some TikTok and YouTube influencers were being given free and discounted cosmetic surgeries in order for them to advertise the surgeries to users of the platforms. TikTok has provided a platform for users to create content not only for fun but also for money. As with other platforms popular with children, underage users may inadvertently reveal their daily routine and whereabouts, raising concerns of potential misuse by sexual predators. By July 2023, TikTok has become the primary news source for British teenagers on social media, with 28% of 12 to 15-year-olds relying on the platform, while traditional sources like BBC One/Two are more trusted at 82%, according to a report by UK regulator Ofcom. TikTok’s geographical use in 2019 has shown that 43% of new users were from India before the social platform was banned in the country.

• TikTok has provided a platform for users to create content not only for fun but also for money.
• While TikTok remains accessible to users in most countries, a minority of countries (including India and Afghanistan) have implemented full or partial bans.
• Recruiters had been using the app to help fill quotas, and some continue to maintain a level of engagement through their personal accounts.
• The Financial Times reported that TikTok will launch a video gaming channel, but the report was denied in a statement to Digiday, with TikTok instead aiming to be a social hub for the gaming community.
• TikTok has also received criticism for enabling children to purchase coins which they can send to other users.
• On 6 November 2024, Canada ordered TikTok to shut down its offices and subsidiary company (TikTok Technology Canada, Inc.) in the country due to national security concerns, but access to the app was not banned.

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According to computer security specialist Bruce Schneier, which company owns TikTok may not matter, as Russia had interfered in the 2016 US elections using Facebook without owning it. Data collected by TikTok and other social networks can already be purchased through other means. As of February 2023, at least 32 (of 50) states have announced or enacted bans on state government agencies, employees, and contractors using TikTok on government-issued devices. 7521, which would ban TikTok entirely unless it was divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
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 ruhtinas 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.
The Ministry of Education (Taiwan) has warned against the harmful impact of TikTok and related app RedNote on body image and ensuing self harm related to weight loss especially in teenagers. As of March 2025update, strong scientific understanding of TikTok’s effects on user’s mental health “remains elusive”. In 2021, the platform revealed that it will be introducing a feature that will prevent teenagers from receiving notifications past their bedtime. Additionally, the app features a dashboard with statistics on how often the app is opened, how much time is spent browsing it and when the browsing occurs.

On 21 December 2024, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced that the Albanian government will shut down TikTok in 2025 for at least a year, following a deadly incident in November 2024 in which a teenager fatally stabbed another teen after a dispute that began on the platform. A Meta spokesperson defended the effort, saying that all platforms, including TikTok, should face equal scrutiny. An investigation in 2025 found that TikTok was profiting from sexual livestreams in Kenya involving minors, with teenagers as young as 15 using the platform to solicit explicit content. The Guardian website removed the letter after displaying it for more than 20 years, and TikTok began issuing takedowns of videos featuring the letter. US lawmakers wanting to ban TikTok accused the platform of pushing pro-Hamas and pro-Palestine content. Several former employees of the company have claimed of poor workplace conditions, including the start of the workweek on Sunday to cooperate with Chinese time zones and excessive workload.

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.
The momentum of digital feminist movements through platforms like TikTok have additionally encouraged many social media agents and marketing campaigns around the world to adopt some degree of feminism as a part of their online image or personal brand. In July 2025, Media Matters reported that Google’s Veo 3 text-to-video model for AI-generated content is being used to generate large numbers of dehumanizing and violent videos with racist and antisemitic tropes which are being shared on TikTok. In October 2019, TikTok removed about two dozen accounts that were responsible for posting ISIL propaganda and execution videos on the app. TikTok pushed back against the NCRI, saying that making “accounts that interact with the app in a prescribed manner” is not the same as the experience of real users and some of the events being compared happened before TikTok existed. In 2019, The Guardian reported that TikTok had censored videos of topics not favored by the Chinese government.