According to President Trump, there was evidence that TikTok was a national security threat.

In 2020, then-US President Donald Trump signed executive order 13942 to ban TikTok in the US within 45 days if the parent company ByteDance did not sell it to an American company. By the end of 2018, the company had a presence in 150 markets in over 75 languages.ĭespite its incredible success, TikTok has been banned in numerous countries due to accusations of spreading “immoral” and “dangerous” content.įor example, TikTok has been banned several times in India due to criticism of the Indian government on the platform. TikTok merged with Musical.ly to take advantage of the latter app’s young user base in the US and other countries. In 2020, it was the most downloaded app.Īround the same time, ByteDance spent $1 billion to acquire the Shanghai company Musical.ly, a video platform that lets users create short, lip-synced music videos.

It quickly became one of the most popular apps on both Apple and Google Play Store. The app experienced a seismic growth in popularity among the Chinese population, so the company prepared for an international release.Īn international version of Douyin was created and called TikTok and was released in global markets in September 2017. Surprisingly, it was developed in only 200 days and was first released in China.

It allows TikTok users to create short videos and share them with friends, family, and fans.īefore it was known as TikTok, it was called Douyin.ĭouyin was originally founded by the privately held Chinese company called ByteDance in 2017 after switching the name from A.me. TikTok is a widely known social media app used for sharing videos.

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