Fact: TikTok's parent company
TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance, the world's most valuable start-up. Numerous countries have raised concerns over its proximity to the Chinese government and hold over user data across the world. Banned TikTok from all federal government-owned devices over security concerns.
TikTok, known as Douyin in its home market, was launched in China in September 2016. It quickly started to gain traction in China and parent company ByteDance launched an international version the following year.
TikTok is owned by the Chinese technology company Bytedance but it insists it is run independently and does not share data with the Chinese government. It is currently carrying out a project to store US user data in Texas, which it says will put it out of China's reach.
Douyin. Douyin was launched by ByteDance in Beijing, China in September 2016, originally under the name A.me, before rebranding to Douyin (抖音) in December 2016. Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.
TikTok, which has over 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd., which appoints its executives. ByteDance is based in Beijing but registered in the Cayman Islands, as is common for privately owned Chinese companies.
“ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government. It is a private company,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said during the March 23 hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The app was launched in 2016 by the Chinese technology company ByteDance. Now available in more than 150 different markets, TikTok has offices in Beijing; Los Angeles; Moscow; Mumbai, India; Seoul, South Korea; and Tokyo. The app saw about 1 billion global daily users by early 2022.
TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and its offices include New York, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.
Zhang has a net worth of US$42.3 billion, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Already, bans on using the app in government have taken effect at the state level. More than half of U.S. states have banned state employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices and a number of U.S. universities have barred it from their WiFi networks. Worth noting: TikTok doesn't operate inside China.
TikTok remains teens' most favored social media platform so far in 2023, though its favorability fell one percentage point from the fall of 2022 with a 37% share, according to Piper Sandler's Spring 2023 Taking Stock with Teens survey. Behind TikTok is Snap (27%) and Instagram (23%).
In Japan, the use of TikTok and other social networking services (SNSs) are prohibited on government devices that handle confidential information. Nakayama said further restrictions should be considered only after looking into their data-handling and other operations.
TikTok is also blocked in Iran and North Korea, but both these countries have highly censored internet, so it is not necessarily a TikTok-specific ban. Which countries have banned partially banned TikTok? The US voted to ban TikTok from federal government…
TikTok announced its exit from Hong Kong in July 2020, a week after China imposed a controversial national security law in the city. The decision came as the app tried to distance itself from China and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, in the face of growing pressure in the US under the Trump administration.
TikTok does not directly pay creators to produce and upload videos. TikTok does offer funding for creators in the form of the TikTok Creativity Program. Still, payment varies based on factors like the number of video views, engagement rates, and the authenticity of users engaging with the post.
To earn money directly from TikTok, join TikTok's Creator Fund. To do this, you need to have a minimum of 10,000 authentic followers (sorry, bots!) and have accrued at least 100,000 views over the last 30 days. (You also need to be 18 or older and live in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, or Spain.)
The most active TikTok users in the United States: 116.5 million. Also in the top three countries with the largest number of TikTok users are Indonesia (113 million) and Brazil (84.1 million).
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, and the company is required to turn over any data and information they collect to the Chinese government at a moment's notice. Therefore, your data can be shared with the Chinese government and used to spy on you or spread misinformation about the American people.
Fact: TikTok's parent company ByteDance Ltd. was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly sixty percent of the company is beneficially owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group.
Shou Zi Chew — CEO of TikTok net worth
While it's hard to get a good estimate of Chew's net worth, marriedbiography has it at around $200m.
"TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made," CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify on Thursday, according to written testimony posted on Tuesday by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
There have also been a number of studies that report TikTok is tracking users around the internet even when they are not using the app. By embedding tracking pixels on third-party websites, TikTok can collect information about a website's visitors, the studies have found.
Is TikTok safe? It's as safe as just about any other social media platform. It doesn't infect your phone with malware, but it comes with some safety risks like scams and saved user data.