The Dhaka Times Desk TikTok is an application that users are using recently to develop their latent talent. TikTok is believed to have around half a billion active users worldwide.
Around half a billion active users worldwide are teenagers or early 20s with a large percentage using TikTok. The short-form video app TikTok has become a fertile breeding ground for memes, many of which feature music and video. It reached the pinnacle of success in a very short period of time. One such example involved users and their pet Rip switching into cowboy and cupgirl outfits at a certain point in Old Town Road to Lil Nas X's song – something that became a huge hit as a result of its efforts.
But some politicians are worried that the app's Chinese owner, Bitance, could become a national security risk that could lead to a major disaster.
The users of this TikTok app – mostly below-20 years of age – use the app to post their 15-second videos. Many lip-synched to songs, comedy routines and/or unusual editing techniques to match their impersonations. It is then made available to both followers and strangers. By default, all accounts are public, although users can restrict uploads to an approved list of contacts. An algorithm analyzes what types of elements each user pays most attention to in order to draw on other clips, and it's easy to lose track of time as one auto-plays one after the other. Members can search for specific topics or users and browse by clicking on hashtags. TikTok also allows sending private messages but this facility is limited to “friends”.
Anyone above the age of 13 can use it and there are parental controls. Many of its long-term members originally downloaded Musical.ly, which maintains a similar style to TikTok. A rival short-form video app owned by a separate Chinese start-up. However, it was acquired by Bitance in 2017, which merged the two platforms. Beijing-based Bytens also has a spin-off app, Doyin. It runs on a different network to comply with Chinese censorship rules. The company is no stranger to controversy. Last year, it sparked a temporary ban in India, following a US intelligence investigation and musical.e allegedly hosting content published by underage users.
Alex Stamos, Facebook's former chief security officer and now a professor at Stanford, tweeted his concerns after news broke of clashes between US and Chinese employees of ByTens. Former members of a US content-vetting team – which removes clips featuring terrorism and obscenity – said their China-based colleagues told them to take videos that would not normally be flagged for objectionable content in the US, according to a report in the Washington Post. The deleted videos featured heavy kissing, suggestive dance moves and political debates. Others worry that China needs its social-media applications to provide state access to users' information. But ByteDance said data about users in other countries is stored separately and not shared with Chinese authorities.
Grindr, the gay dating app acquired by Chinese company Kulun, presents a cautionary tale for TikTok. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CIFIS) forced Kulun to sell Grindr, which it agreed to do in 2020. Cepheus has the power to open foreign takeovers if US companies pose a national security threat. And it ruled that Grindr kept too much personal information about US troops. The same committee now looking into the musical takeover was reportedly based on the fact that the company had a California base, although its headquarters were in Shanghai.
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