It also announced that US user traffic would now be routed through Oracle Cloud and that backup copies would be deleted from other servers. Following the reports, TikTok confirmed that employees in China could have access to US data. As a consequence, the Senate Intelligence Committee including US lawmakers Mark Warner and Marco Rubio called for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate ByteDance and whether TikTok had misled them.
UK Information Commissioner’s Office
In response to the allegations, the company noted that they were committed to allowing employees « support and flexibility ». Another employee noted that working at the company caused her to seek marriage therapy and lose an unhealthy amount of weight. One female worker complained that the company did not allow her adequate time to change her feminine hygiene product because of back-to-back meetings. The company has a stated policy of working from 10 AM to 7 PM five days per week (63 hours per week), but employees noted that it was encouraged for employees to work after hours. In November 2022, Australia’s medical regulatory agency, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) reported that there was a global shortage of the diabetes medication Ozempic.
In September 2021, the Ireland Data Protection Commission (DPC) launched investigations into TikTok concerning the protection of minors’ data and transfers of personal data to China. The US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia reportedly subpoenaed information from ByteDance regarding its surveillance of journalists on TikTok. In December 2022, ByteDance confirmed after internal investigation that the data of two journalists and their close contacts had been accessed by its employees from China and the United States.
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- There were also multiple conspiracy theories that the government is involved with the spread of the pandemic.
- After a new set of Russian war censorship laws was installed in March 2022, the company announced a series of restrictions on Russian and non-Russian posts and livestreams.
- TikTok has been downloaded more than 130 million times in the United States and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide, according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower (those numbers exclude Android users in China).
- TikTok moderators were instructed to suppress posts from « For You » recommendations if the users shown were deemed « too ugly, poor, or disabled ».
- Numerous social media users, including Americans, expressed their opposition to US foreign policy by sharing the resurfaced copies of the letter and its contents.
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.
In January 2020, left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America said that TikTok hosted misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic despite a recent policy against misinformation. The platform has also been used to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, such as clips from Plandemic. In June 2021, TikTok made an apology after a shock video, showing a girl dancing which then cuts to a graphic scene of a man being beheaded by a saw, went viral. Concerns have been voiced regarding content relating to, and the promotion and spreading of, hate speech and far-right extremism, such as antisemitism, islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia. According to their survey, people who use TikTok more than three hours daily are significantly more positive about China’s human rights record compared to those who do not use the app.
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They have also labeled a potential ban on the app an assault on freedom of speech, including Republican congressmen Rand Paul and Thomas Massie. State bans only affect government employees and do not prohibit civilians from having or using the app on their personal devices. On 30 December 2022, President Joe Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, prohibiting the use of the app on devices owned by the federal government, with some exceptions. Recruiters had been using the app to help fill quotas, and some continue to maintain a level of engagement through their personal accounts. 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. On 7 March 2025, the shutdown was officially enacted after the Albanian Cabinet cited concerns over the app’s role in promoting violence and bullying among children.
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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.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Silicon Valley executives met with US lawmakers to build an « anti-China alliance » before TikTok CEO’s congressional hearing in March 2023. In March 2024, The Information reported that it is an open secret among investors that TikTok loses billions of dollars annually. According to sources for The Wall Street Journal, the personnel move led to concerns from some ruhtinas TikTok employees and was reported to the office of US senator Ted Cruz for further investigation.
TikTok has been downloaded more than 130 million times in the United States and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide, according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower (those numbers exclude Android users in China). TikTok merged with Musical.ly on 2 August 2018 with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok. While TikTok remains accessible to users in most countries, a minority of countries (including India and Afghanistan) have implemented full or partial bans.
This is a concern as many of TikTok’s audience are younger children, whose brains are still developing. TikTok uses popular influencers to encourage viewers to stop using the app and take a break. Vox noted in 2018 that bullies and trolls were relatively rare on TikTok compared to other platforms. In December 2023, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner announced an inquiry into TikTok’s data harvesting of Australian citizens amid allegations that it contravened Australian privacy law.
Viral trends
- 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.
- The widespread popularity of these trends has influenced various aspects of society, including interest in cooking among younger generations, discussions about body image, the marketing of food products on social media, and temporary food shortages.
- The court cited TikTok’s negligence in failing to implement « necessary and adequate measures » to prevent the viral video challenges.
- As of the first quarter of 2022, there were over 100 million monthly active users in the United States and 23 million in the UK.
- 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.
- In January 2020, left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America said that TikTok hosted misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic despite a recent policy against misinformation.
TikTok is THE destination for mobile videos. In early 2026, the United States and China approved a deal transferring operational control of TikTok’s US business to a joint venture led by Oracle and Silver Lake, following a 2024 US law requiring ByteDance to divest the platform over national security concerns. New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster praised the platform for taking a « socially-responsible stance » against gangs. A TikTok spokesperson reiterated the platform’s efforts to countering « violent » and « hateful » organizations’ content and cooperating with police.
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TikTok said that the tracking method suggested by the report would not be feasible because precise GPS information is not collected by the platform. In October 2022, Forbes reported that a team at ByteDance planned to surveil certain US citizens for undisclosed reasons. A third party will oversee the cybersecurity policies, data flows, and personnel access independently of TikTok. Another said TikTok had to employ better data collection practices than Meta or Google due to the scrutiny it received. TikTok responded by saying that Project Texas already is a re-engineering of the app and that the former employee left in 2022 before the project specifications were finalized. In March 2023, a former employee of the company said Project Texas did not go far enough and that a complete « re-engineering » would be needed.
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.