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TikTok is the quickest growing, most used, and — arguably— most talked about social network. It's front and center of every social media policy, and big brands, big creators, and big tech are all trying to reach the billion people there. So why might the U.S. still ban it? What's the controversy around the "heating" algorithm, and why do some think it's entered its "ensh*ttification" era?
TikTok hit the 1 billion active user mark (users visiting at least once a month) in just over five years, Apptopia data shows. That's more than two and a half years quicker than Instagram and 3.5 years quicker than Facebook. TikTok was by far the most downloaded app in 2022, and Capcut, a video editing piece of software to create TikTok videos, was fourth on that same Apptopia list.
It is one of the biggest apps in the world, and it's grown from around $3.9 billion in revenue in 2021 to a projected $18 billion in 2023, according to eMarketer data, but clouds are gathering — it could either be banned, heavily regulated or users might start looking elsewhere after recent revelations risk harming its brand. Could it really be the beginning of the end?
Several U.S. officials want to ban TikTok because of its links to China. Whether or not you believe TikTok is owned by the Chinese Communist Party (the answer, as with most of these questions, is "it's complicated"), TikTok's parent company ByteDance has stepped up lobbying on Capitol Hill under the mysterious codename of "Project Texas."
It's spending around $1.5 billion, reports suggest, to brief members of Congress, academics, and others about mitigating any concerns that the Chinese government would have any unauthorized access to data. It's a negotiation where TikTok will keep at least some data on U.S. soil and create a board of directors in the U.S., but details are still fuzzy. It is likely that how much progress lobbyists can make will directly impact the size of this "project."
Despite this change of tact, Congress voted to ban TikTok from federal devices, with at least 25 states already enacting some sort of prohibition. Several public universities have enacted similar bans, and Sen. Josh Hawley has reintroduced the idea of a nationwide block, once started during Donald Trump's presidency.
"At the height of Donald Trump's one-man battle against TikTok during the 2020 US presidential campaign, it seemed like TikTok's days were numbered," Chris Stokel-Walker, journalist and author of TikTok Boom, tells Newsweek. "We're seeing TikTok in greater peril than it was during Trump's campaign. The bipartisan head of steam building against it, being done by the book, is a bigger risk to TikTok's future than Trump's threats to ban it, in large part because it'll be done through proper procedure.
"I'm still not sure it'll happen, both politically, legally, and pragmatically: enough people use [virtual private network] VPNs nowadays to get around any limitation of access. But the lobbying TikTok is doing on the Hill is an indication of how seriously it takes this latest threat."
If it is banned, where users would go is unclear. Around 65% of users are under 25, analyst Oberlo says, and experts say Instagram is giving Gen Z "the ick" without an obvious next place to go. This makes this diplomatic battle even more important.
TikTok has become a lightning rod for U.S./China relations. If you remember the Huawei scandal from 2020, when the U.K. promised to remove the Chinese company from its infrastructure following an intervention from Trump, it's a similar story here. Chinese firms are being held to a different standard because of the diplomatic repercussions of letting the Chinese Communist Party get too close... or even that a media story could be spun that they are getting too close.
A great example is a piece in Forbes last week that revealed a secret "heating" button that meant staff could make anyone go viral. Similar mechanics are in use by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
"The heating button scandal is, in many ways, emblematic of the bigger issue TikTok faces," Stokel-Walker says. "It's not new. I reported in my book, published in 2021 that TikTok staff could inorganically push viewers to certain users and videos.
"Social media platforms always juice numbers and curate content. What's different is that TikTok has the Chinese question looming over it. It's constantly had to prove that it's cleaner than clean and to justify what is normal practice across the broader tech world... For those who aren't cognizant of how tech works and haven't necessarily looked at TikTok much, it could be shocking. But it shouldn't be."
The final cloud hanging over TikTok is its revenue model. A small change to its cut of "gift" revenue (where audiences send tokens to creators over the app) will see it move from 50% of gross revenue to 50% of net revenue at the end of February. It's a small change, but one example of a wider trend tech analysts see as killing the platform.
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