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 August 2024, the NCRI released a subsequent report based on user journey data from 24 accounts that they created across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. After increased scrutiny, TikTok said it is granting some outside experts access to the platform’s anonymized data sets and protocols, including filters, keywords, criteria for heating, and source code. In January 2023, Forbes reported that a “heating” tool allows TikTok to manually promote certain videos, comprising 1–2% of daily views. A significant number of users on TikTok, such as Juju Green, create content surrounding Film criticism and Easter eggs.
The growth of popularity and access to TikTok has contributed to a growth in popularity of digital feminist movements and discourse originating from the platform. 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. Furthermore, TikTok developed an in-app Electoral Center in partnership with the Central Electoral Commission of Moldova and worked with Reuters and the STOP FALS! That month, Bloomberg reported, citing European officials and documents of undisclosed origin, that Russia had prepared a plan to interfere in the election, which would have included a disinformation campaign in both Romanian and Russian on Facebook, Telegram and TikTok. According to an investigation published in September 2025 by Moldovan newspaper Ziarul de Gardă, before the 2025 Moldovan parliamentary election, hundreds of accounts with false identities were created to spread Russian propaganda in TikTok and Facebook. There were also multiple conspiracy theories that the government is involved with the spread of the pandemic.
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. Some TikTok users share personal recipes and dietary habits, while others use step-by-step cooking videos to grow their online presence. TikTok food trends refer to popular recipes and food-related fads on the social media platform TikTok.
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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- Duets, a feature that allows users to add their own video to an existing video with the original content’s audio, have sparked many of these trends.
- In December 2022, it was reported that a cosmetic surgery procedure known as buccal fat removal was going viral on the platform.
- Jasmine Enberg, a principal social media analyst at eMarketer, observes that launching Notes as a separate app, instead of as a new feature in TikTok, may be done in response to regulatory and consumer scrutiny.
- Other TikTok creators have spoken out against accepting sponsorship deals indiscriminately and criticized those who posted undisclosed FeetFinder ads.
- Users can choose whether any other user, or only their “friends”, may interact with them through the app via comments, messages, or “react” or “duet” videos.
- The song rose to popularity when musician Daniel Mertzlufft composed a backing track to the song.
In April 2024, TikTok users started receiving notifications that their current and future picture posts would be shown on a new app called TikTok Notes. Under the deal, the app will remain the same, and the algorithm will be adjusted over time to favor American topics for those users. The Financial Times reported that TikTok will launch a video gaming channel, but the report was denied in a statement to Digiday, with TikTok instead aiming to be a social hub for the gaming community. In July 2020, TikTok, excluding Douyin, reported close to 800 million monthly active users ruhtinas worldwide after less than four years of existence. In January 2019, TikTok allowed creators to embed merchandise sale links into their videos.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Duets, a feature that allows users to add their own video to an existing video with the original content’s audio, have sparked many of these trends. In December 2021, TikTok started beta-testing Live Studio, a streaming software that would let users broadcast applications open on their computers, including games. Users can choose whether any other user, or only their “friends”, may interact with them through the app via comments, messages, or “react” or “duet” videos. The app’s “react” feature allows users to film their reaction to a specific video, over which it is placed in a small window that is movable around the screen.
- Despite safety concerns, TikTok began rolling out photo, video, and voice messaging around 2025.
- Experts considered them to be “vague” and their implications “problematic” for the United States due to the country’s general lack of robust data privacy laws.
- Private content remains visible to TikTok but is blocked from TikTok users who the account holder has not authorized to view their content.
- They also reported that facilities that offered these surgeries were also posting about them on TikTok.
- The platform’s algorithm also contributes to the influencer marketing potential, as it picks out content according to the user’s preference.
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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.
Supported Features
In June 2020, TikTok users and K-pop fans “claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets” for Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma through communication on TikTok, contributing to “rows of empty seats” at the event. However, it has received criticism for not paying royalties to artists whose music is used on the platform. TikTok has allowed many music artists to gain a wider audience, often including foreign fans.
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Content promoting cosmetic surgery is popular on TikTok and has spawned several viral trends on the platform. Women’s apparel can roughly be divided into petite, straight, and plus sizes, leaving gaps in between. “Midsize” fashion gained greater exposure on TikTok after many creators opened up about not able to find clothing sizes that fit them well. These hashtags have amassed 4.6 million and 4.5 million posts, respectively, according to the platform. Food-related content on TikTok is often categorized under the hashtags #TikTokFood and #FoodTok. In 2023, a trend emerged where streamers acted as if they were video-game characters following prompts from their viewers.
This helps users find new content and creators reach new audiences, in contrast to other social networks that base recommendations on the interactions and relationships between users. The “For You” page on TikTok is a feed of videos that are recommended to users based on their activity on the app. There is insufficient public evidence to show that American user data has been accessed by or shared with the PRC government, with some claims reportedly exaggerated. Many moderators say the company’s content policies are ineffective, and digital pimps exploit underage users on the large.
TikTok has taken measures to remove and prevent access to content displaying the trend. The song rose to popularity when musician Daniel Mertzlufft composed a backing track to the song. In 2020, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was used in a skating video and a recreation by Mick Fleetwood.
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.
Underage users
On 22 January 2026, US President Donald Trump and TikTok announced that the company had joined a joint venture, which will run as an independent entity while operate under defined safeguards that protect national security for US users. A new subsidiary, TikTok US Data Security Inc. (USDS), was created to manage user data, software code, back-end systems, and content moderation. In response to security concerns of the United States government, TikTok has been working to silo privileged user data within the United States under oversight from the US government or a third party such as Oracle. In June 2022, BuzzFeed News reported that leaked audio recordings of internal TikTok meetings reveal employees in China had access to overseas data, including a “master admin” who could see “everything”. TikTok said it does not give information to China’s government and “US user data” is stored within the country with backups in Singapore. Lawmakers also “hammered” TikTok about whether consumer data could be turned over to the Chinese government through ByteDance, its parent company in China.
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. TikTok’s unique platform organization, of spontaneous peer-peer information sharing, has enabled its utilization for community-engaged, digital knowledge mobilization and exchange between social justice communities. In September 2024, TikTok removed the accounts of Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik.