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What is TikTok and why is Donald Trump threatening to ban the Chinese app in America?

What is TikTok and why is it accused of being a Chinese spy tool? - Telegraph/Telegraph
What is TikTok and why is it accused of being a Chinese spy tool? - Telegraph/Telegraph

From becoming the must-have social media app to being derided as potential Chinese spyware, TikTok has had a tumultuous 2020.

Since its launch four years ago, the video sharing app has been downloaded two billion times in what had seemed to be an impenetrable market.

It has given rise to a strange new world of lip-synced dance routines, cat videos and other oddball content that keeps hundreds of millions of bored teenagers and young adults mesmerised.

But its popularity in Western countries may be under threat following comments that the app could be banned in the US by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump. Its links to China have also come under scrutiny with critics claiming its could be used as a tool to spy by Beijing.

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Now Microsoft is closing in on a deal to buy the US arm of TikTok from its Chinese owner Bytedance in a bid to help prevent a ban in the US.

But what exactly is TikTok and how has it found itself the subject of such intense criticism?

What is TikTok?

Founded in 2016 by Bytedance, one of the world’s most-valuable start-up, TikTok has surged in popularity and now is believed to have around 800 million users worldwide.

In the UK, the app is expected break 10 million users by the end of next year, up from 4.9 million in 2019.

“In essence, what we see at the moment is an app with a trajectory that places it under the heading of potential Instagram rival,” says Alex Malafeev, co-founder of SensorTower, a US company that tracks apps.

“For users, TikTok represents uncharted territory, where they have the opportunity to carve out a new following and potentially leverage these early days to find success as an influencer, something that's much more difficult on well-established platforms.”

The app is the first short-video sharing platform that has truly caught on with users globally since the closure of Vine in early 2017.

In its infancy TikTok was largely viewed as the lip-syncing app, with many of its most-popular videos centring around people mimicking songs. However, now it has taken a form much closer to what Vine was before it closed down.

Short and snappy funny videos from between 15-60 seconds, spanning a broad range of categories, have proliferated the site.

"TikTokkers" often film themselves acting out comedy skits or singing along to various songs. For example, comedian Sarah Cooper used the site to push her imitations of US president Donald Trump.

While many mainstream TikTok users stick to the app for music videos and dancing, a growing subset of users embrace “Alt TikTok” or “Elite TikTok”, promoting satire and often political jokes.

What has made it so popular?

The strategy of picking users' content for them, freeing them from the burden of choice, supercharged TikTok's growth in the West.

Twitter and Facebook have the fundamental problem that they are useless until new users follow someone or add a friend. Both companies have spent years furiously trying to lower that first hurdle.

TikTok, however, just runs right through it, requiring no input before showing music videos and skits to its users.

Instead of picking from a menu of options, users make tiny and often unconscious choices: liking this video, skipping that one, letting another play for just a few seconds longer than normal. TikTok watches, and it does not judge.

Who is behind the app?

TikTok’s parent company Bytedance was set up in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, and remains one of just a few Chinese tech giants to have cracked the Western market.

Its debut on the global stage began in 2017, when Bytedance bought video-sharing platform Musical.ly for around $1bn (£770m) before folding it into its own video service.

Zhang’s acquisition of Musical.ly was a clear signal that his ambitions weren’t limited to success within China. Instead, he saw a global audience for ByteDance’s stable of apps.

The move placed its product on millions of handsets in the West and helped ByteDance leapfrog Uber to become the world’s most valuable startup.

Thirty eight-year-old Zhang is now China’s tenth richest man with a personal wealth of $16.2bn after TikTok was downloaded more than two billion times. His company is the most valuable start-up in the world.

In addition to TikTok, his company also owns Helo, an Indian social media app, Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and BaBe, an Indonesian news app."

The rise of the TikTok influencer

TikTok says that its community is "raw, real and without boundaries" and claims to be appropriate for children aged 13 and older. The app has bred a new wave of influencers, with Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae and Zach King among the top accounts.

In the UK, the app has a range of established British stars - including 21-year old Londoner Holly Hubert, known as HollyH on TikTok, who has accumulated 16.7 million followers. She's known for uploading acting, lip syncing, and other comedy videos.

Other top users in the UK include Amanda Gething - who has accumulated 7.2 million followers - twins, Max and Harvey - with around six million - and Zephan Clak - who has three million.

How much each TikTokker makes remains relatively private, however some of the biggest are believed to charge hundreds of thousands of pounds for sponsored content.

@hollyh

thought i’d make a musically today 🙈

♬ Stay X The Middle - rapidsongs

What are the fears around the app?

With its growing popularity in the West, TikTok has come under increasing scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers.

President Donald Trump said last month that he was considering banning it as a way to punish China over the coronavirus pandemic.

Other top US lawmakers have raised concerns over the potential for Tiktok to leak users' data to the Chinese government. The app has also faced questions on whether it hides videos from Hong Kong's protests to appease the Chinese government - something it has repeatedly denied.

India - where TikTok is also wildly popular - recently blocked the platform on national security grounds following a deadly border clash between its soldiers and Chinese forces.

Away from security concerns, there remain fears that TikTok is a haven for predators. Some say its popularity, particularly among young girls, exposes them to comments and other potential abuse from nefarious actors.

For some, the social network has grown too quickly to have sufficient safeguards. TikTok says safety is a "priority" and that it has protective measures in place to avoid misuse.

TikTok recently revealed it took down 49 million videos for violating its policies in the last six months of 2019 as it doubled down on efforts to distance itself from its Chinese roots.

The video-sharing app released its latest transparency report, which showed that it had removed fewer than 1pc of the videos on its app, equal to 49 million videos, for breaching its community guidelines or terms of service.

How is Microsoft involved?

In response to a potential ban in the US, ByteDance’s venture investors, including Sequoia Capital, urged company founder and Chief Executive Officer Zhang Yiming to head off any US government action by selling a majority stake in TikTok to them.

At first, Zhang was reticent to give up control, but Bytedance feared an outright ban in the US and the loss of a multi-billion business, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Zhang relented and got on board with selling a majority stake to US investors, but it turned out that arrangement wasn’t sufficient. Administration officials didn’t want to leave the company’s Chinese founder with even a minority stake or for ByteDance’s long-time venture capital allies to have a majority stake in the company, these people said.

Meanwhile, Microsoft and TikTok began preliminary deal discussions. Talks beginning in July involved CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood and President and Chief Legal officer Brad Smith.

Microsoft in a blog post Sunday confirmed talks to buy TikTok’s operations in the US, as well as in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and said it’s aiming to complete the deal no later than September 15.

TikTok pushes to prove its innocence

Any suggestion that TikTok is a tool of the Chinese government has been strongly rebuffed. The company has also insisted that it does not hand over data to Chinese authorities and that it is taking steps to separate the hugely-popular app away from ByteDance.

“Let us be very clear: TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China,” the company said in a blog post on the matter.

“We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period.”

In addition, TikTok said its US moderation team, which is led from California, reviews content on adherence with US policies.

“We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government; TikTok does not operate in China, nor do we have any intention of doing so in the future,” the company said.

More recently, the company has also moved to pull its services from Hong Kong, following the passing of a new national security law on the city by China. Sensor Tower data showed that as of September 2019, TikTok had about 1.8 million downloads in a city of 7.4 million people.

TikTok joined a list of some of the biggest names in tech, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Google, in making changes to their operations in Hong Kong.

The social media app is also now run by former Disney streaming boss Kevin Mayer. Mr Mayer could look to ease tensions between the US government and the hugely-valuable app.

TikTok was designed so it could not be accessed by mainland China. That was part of a strategy to appeal to a more global audience. Its equivalent on the mainland is called Douyin.

There are no plans currently to introduce Douyin to the Hong Kong market, a ByteDance spokesman said.