As the US Supreme Court considers whether to uphold a law that could ban TikTok in the United States, here’s a look at the rise of the video-snippet social app.
Produce
In 2016, Beijing-based ByteDance launched Douyin, a short video sharing app, making it available only in China.
ByteDance released TikTok for the international market the following year, shortly before purchasing the song “lip-syncing” app Musical.ly and merging it into TikTok.
The social network became a hit due to its algorithms serving up endless collections of short, looping, usually playful videos posted by users.
epidemic surge
TikTok’s popularity increased during the COVID-19 pandemic declared in 2020, as people facing lockdown relied on the internet for entertainment and recreation.
As a result, authorities began tracking TikTok’s influence and addictive appeal.
TikTok became one of the most downloaded apps in the world as officials became wary of the Chinese government’s ability to influence ByteDance or access user data.
India banned TikTok in July 2020 due to tensions with China.
Trump’s target
When Donald Trump was US President in 2020, he signed executive orders banning TikTok in the country.
Trump accused TikTok, without any evidence, of stealing American users’ data to benefit Beijing and censoring posts to please Chinese officials.
Trump’s decision came against a backdrop of political tensions between Washington and Beijing.
During his unsuccessful re-election bid, Republicans campaigned on an anti-China message.
Amid legal challenges and Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, the executive orders did not go into effect.
Arab Mark
In September 2021, TikTok announced that it had reached 1 billion monthly users worldwide.
But concerns grew about TikTok users facing risks of addiction, propaganda and spying.
In 2022, BuzzFeed reported that ByteDance employees based in China had accessed non-public information from TikTok users.
ByteDance attempted to assuage privacy concerns by hosting user data on servers managed by Oracle in the United States.
The move did not ease concerns in the United States, where TikTok was banned on devices used by the military.
Other government agencies and educational institutions followed suit, prohibiting members from using TikTok.
TikTok’s Singaporean chief executive Shou Zi Chew was questioned by members of the US Congress during a 6-hour hearing in March 2023.
sell or go
TikTok was back on the hot seat in the United States in 2024, when President Joe Biden approved a law requiring TikTok to be banned unless ByteDance sells the app to a company that violates national security. Not connected to the opponent.
Washington’s stated aim is to reduce the risk of Beijing spying on or manipulating TikTok users, particularly the app’s 170 million US users.
TikTok is adamant that it has never shared user data with the Chinese government or done its bidding on the social network.
ByteDance sued the US government, arguing that the law violates free speech rights.
The final decision in that case is to be made by the US Supreme Court, which on Tuesday agreed to examine whether the pending ban violates the Constitution.
The Supreme Court has fixed the hearing on this matter on January 10.
President-elect Donald Trump, who returns to office on January 20, has indicated he may intervene on TikTok’s behalf.
Trump recently spoke of having a “soft spot” for TikTok, and his campaign this year used the app to drum up support among young voters.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
