SAN FRANCISCO — If it seems like TikTok has been round eternally, that is most likely as a result of it has, at the very least in the event you’re measuring by way of web time. What’s now in query is whether or not it will likely be round for much longer and, in that case, in what kind?
Beginning in 2017, when the Chinese language social video app merged with its competitor Musical.ly, TikTok has grown from a distinct segment teen app into a worldwide trendsetter. Whereas, in fact, additionally rising as a possible nationwide safety menace, in accordance with U.S. officers.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed laws requiring TikTok mum or dad ByteDance to promote to a U.S. proprietor inside a 12 months or to close down. It is not clear whether or not that regulation will survive an anticipated authorized problem or that ByteDance would comply with promote.
Here is how TikTok got here to this juncture:
ByteDance is based in China by entrepreneur Zhang Yimin. Its first hit product is Toutiao, a personalised information aggregator for Chinese language customers.
Startup Musical.ly, later identified for an eponymous app used to put up brief lipsyncing music movies, is based in China by entrepreneur Alex Zhu.
Musical.ly hits #1 within the Apple App Retailer, following a design change that made the corporate’s emblem seen when customers shared their movies.
ByteDance launches Douyin, a video sharing app for Chinese language customers. Its recognition evokes the corporate to spin off a model for international audiences known as TikTok.
ByteDance acquires Musical.ly for $1 billion. 9 months later, ByteDance merges it with TikTok.
Powered by an algorithm that encourages binge-watching, customers start to share all kinds of video on the app, together with dance strikes, kitchen meals preparation and varied “challenges” to carry out, report and put up acts that vary from severe to satirical.
Rapper Lil Nas X releases the country-trap music “Outdated City Highway” on TikTok, the place it goes viral and pushes the music to a report 17 weeks within the #1 spot on the Billboard Scorching 100 chart. The phenomenon kicks off a wave of TikTok movies from musical artists who all of a sudden see TikTok as a vital strategy to attain followers.
TikTok settles federal expenses of violating U.S. child-privacy legal guidelines and agrees to pay a $5.7 million nice.
The Washington Put up experiences that whereas photographs of Hong Kong democracy protests and police crackdowns are frequent on most social media websites, they’re unusually absent on TikTok. The identical story notes that TikTok posts with the #trump2020 tag obtained greater than 70 million views.
The corporate insists that TikTok content material moderation, performed within the U.S., shouldn’t be accountable and says the app is a spot for leisure, not politics.
The Guardian experiences on inner paperwork that reportedly element how TikTok instructs its moderators to delete or restrict the attain of movies concerning subjects delicate to China such because the 1989 Tiananmen Sq. protests and subsequent bloodbath, Tibetan independence or the sanctioned non secular group Falun Gong.
U.S. politicians start to lift alarms about TikTok’s affect, calling for a federal investigations of its Musical.ly acquisition and a nationwide safety probe into TikTok and different Chinese language-owned apps. That investigation begins in November, in accordance with information experiences.
The Pentagon recommends that every one U.S. army personnel delete TikTok from all telephones, private and government-issued. Some companies ban the app on army owned telephones. In January, the Pentagon bans the app from all army telephones.
TikTok turns into the second-most downloaded app on this planet, in accordance with information from analytics agency SensorTower.
Privateness teams file a criticism alleging TikTok remains to be violating U.S. child-protection legal guidelines and flouting a 2019 settlement settlement. The corporate “takes the problem of safely critically” and continues to enhance safeguards, it says.
TikTok hires former Disney government Kevin Mayer as its chief government officer in an obvious try to enhance its U.S. relations. Mayer resigns three months later.
India bans TikTok and dozens of different Chinese language apps in response to a border conflict with China.
President Donald Trump says he’s contemplating banning TikTok as retaliation for China’s alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump points a sweeping however imprecise government order banning American corporations from any “transaction” with ByteDance and its subsidiaries, together with TikTok. A number of days later, he points a second order demanding that ByteDance divest itself of TikTok’s U.S. operations inside 90 days.
Microsoft confirms it’s exploring acquisition of TikTok. The deal by no means materializes; neither does the same overture from Oracle and Walmart. TikTok, in the meantime, sues the Trump administration for alleged violation of due course of in its government orders.
Joe Biden is elected president. He would not provide new coverage on TikTok and will not take workplace till January, however Trump’s plans to drive a sale of TikTok begin to unravel anyway. The Trump administration extends the deadlines it had imposed on ByteDance and TikTok and finally lets them slide altogether.
Newly sworn-in President Joe Biden postpones the authorized instances involving Trump’s plan to ban TikTok, successfully bringing them to a halt.
TikTok publicizes it has greater than a billion month-to-month lively customers.
A Wall Road Journal report finds TikTok algorithms can flood teenagers with a torrent of dangerous materials comparable to movies recommending excessive weight-reduction plan, a type of consuming dysfunction.
TikTok publicizes new guidelines to discourage the unfold of dangerous materials comparable to viral hoaxes and promotion of consuming issues.
“The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” a challenge created by two followers of the Netflix present as a TikTok challenge, wins the Grammy for Greatest Musical Theater Album.
TikTok turns into probably the most downloaded app on this planet, beating out Instagram, in accordance with SensorTower information.
BuzzFeed experiences that China-based ByteDance workers have repeatedly accessed the nonpublic info of TikTok customers, based mostly on leaked recordings from greater than 80 inner TikTok conferences. TikTok responds with a imprecise remark touting its dedication to safety that does not instantly deal with the BuzzFeed report.
TikTok additionally publicizes it has migrated its consumer information to U.S. servers managed by the U.S. tech agency Oracle. However that does not forestall contemporary alarm amongst U.S. officers in regards to the threat of Chinese language authorities accessing U.S. consumer information.
FBI Director Chris Wrap raises nationwide safety issues about TikTok, warning that Chinese language officers might manipulate the app’s suggestion algorithm for affect operations.
ByteDance additionally stated it fired 4 workers who accessed information on journalists from Buzzfeed Information and The Monetary Occasions whereas trying to trace down leaks of confidential supplies in regards to the firm.
The White Home offers federal companies 30 days to make sure TikTok is deleted from all government-issued cellular gadgets. Each the FBI and the Federal Communications Fee warn that ByteDance might share TikTok consumer information with China’s authoritarian authorities.
Legislators grill TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at a six-hour congressional listening to the place Chew, a local of Singapore, makes an attempt to push again on assertions that TikTok and ByteDance are instruments of the Chinese language authorities.
TikTok stated it was proscribing a device some researchers use to research in style movies on the platform.
A invoice to ban TikTok or drive its sale to a U.S. firm gathers steam in Congress. TikTok brings dozens of its creators to Washington to inform lawmakers to again off, whereas emphasizing adjustments the corporate has made to guard consumer information. TikTok additionally annoys legislators by sending notifications to customers urging them to “communicate up now” or threat seeing TikTok banned; customers then flood congressional workplaces with calls.
The Home of Representatives passes the TikTok ban-or-sell invoice.
The Senate follows swimsuit, sending the invoice to President Biden, who indicators it.
