TikTok | The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2026-04-10T20:58:38+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/tiktok/index.xml https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Charles Pulliam-Moore <![CDATA[The Iranian Lego AI video creators credit their virality to ‘heart’]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=909948 2026-04-10T16:58:38-04:00 2026-04-10T13:30:00-04:00 An AI-generated image depicting a Lego Moses standing in front of a pyramid into which Donald Trump’s face is etched. The pyramid is being bombarded by missiles.

Donald Trump has spun the recent rescue of a downed airman whose fighter jet was destroyed behind Iranian borders as a resounding success. But the story is very different in one of the many viral, AI-generated Lego videos that have been produced by Iranian content creation group Explosive Media in the weeks since the US and Israel began dropping bombs on the country. In Explosive Media's music video take on how things played out, the US military is a joke for losing multiple planes and helicopters, and spending "$100 million just to save one guy."

The video's shots of Lego jets exploding into $100 bills and golden coins reinforce the idea …

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]]> Jess Weatherbed <![CDATA[Why can’t TikTok identify AI generated ads when I can?]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=900400 2026-03-30T09:09:58-04:00 2026-03-28T10:00:00-04:00 A screenshot taken from a Samsung video promoting AI editing tools.
Samsung, like many companies using generative AI in their advertising, hasn’t placed an AI label on several videos shared through its TikTok accounts, and the fine print doesn’t always contain the answers. | Image by Samsung

I've been struggling to tell whether the ads appearing in my TikTok feeds have been made with generative AI tools. As someone who spends a great deal of time scrutinizing images and videos for the usual "tells" that something was synthetically generated, some of the promotions I've seen have definitely sparked suspicion. For several weeks, I didn't see any examples with the AI disclosure required by TikTok's advertising policies, however, so I had no way of knowing for sure.

What irks me is that someone knows for sure if the content is AI-generated. They're just not telling the rest of us. And if companies that claim to support AI-labelling …

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]]> Charles Pulliam-Moore <![CDATA[Tubi and TikTok are partnering to produce long form series]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=896648 2026-03-19T12:20:52-04:00 2026-03-19T09:05:53-04:00 TikTok and Tubi logos.

Soon, some of TikTok's biggest personalities are going to be launching new streaming series on Tubi.

Today, Tubi and TikTok announced that they are working together to launch a new Creatorverse Incubator that will help content creators produce long form original series for the Fox-owned streaming service. Once selected for the program, a group of Tiktokkers will work with Tubi to develop a variety of scripted and unscripted (think competition / dating / game shows) projects covering a number of different genres. In a statement about the initiative, Tubi said that it plans to announce its first cohort of participants some time later this sum …

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]]> Terrence O’Brien <![CDATA[Trump administration is allegedly collecting $10 billion on the TikTok deal]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=895039 2026-03-14T17:57:07-04:00 2026-03-14T17:57:07-04:00 An illustration of the TikTok logo over the Capitol

In September, Donald Trump claimed that "the United States is getting a tremendous fee" for brokering the TikTok deal. Now sources tell the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times that fee is expected to be in the range of $10 billion. The money is supposedly being paid by new investors, including Oracle and Silver Lake. Reports are that $2.5 billion was already paid to the Treasury when the deal closed on January 22nd. The rest will be paid out in installments.

This is the latest example of the Trump administration inserting itself into private business in unprecedented ways, including taking on a 10-percent stake in Intel last August, …

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]]> Jess Weatherbed <![CDATA[You can soon listen to Apple Music inside of TikTok — and artists get paid for it]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=892975 2026-03-11T08:58:41-04:00 2026-03-11T09:00:00-04:00 Three mobile screenshots showing the Play Full Song and Listening Party features release by TikTok and Apple Music.
Apple Music subscribers are getting new music discovery tools on TikTok. | Image: Apple / TikTok

Apple Music subscribers will soon be able to listen to full-length music tracks on TikTok without having to leave the TikTok app. The platforms have teamed up to launch two new features - Play Full Song and Listening Party - that allow users to connect their accounts and open an Apple Music player directly within TikTok. The features are rolling out worldwide over the coming weeks, according to Apple.

Together, Play Full Song and Listening Party aim to help Apple Music subscribers to discover new music on TikTok without jumping between platforms, and ensure that artists are fairly compensated. Because full-length song playback is built on …

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]]> Stevie Bonifield <![CDATA[Another Oracle outage is messing up US TikTok]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=888647 2026-03-03T15:26:21-05:00 2026-03-03T15:26:21-05:00 An image showing the TikTok logo on a black background

The US version of TikTok is once again experiencing issues due to an Oracle outage, just a month after coming back online from a similar outage in February.

The service disruption, impacting Oracle's Ashburn, Virginia data center, began early Tuesday afternoon, with Downdetector reports spiking around 1PM Eastern. TikTok USDS confirmed in a post on X that US users "may temporarily experience lags in posting content while Oracle works to resolve the issue."

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]]> Mia Sato <![CDATA[How MLB can make baseball relevant on a fast-changing internet]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=886115 2026-03-27T12:10:27-04:00 2026-03-01T08:00:00-05:00 A collage of baseball love on pink coming out of a phone with hearts and emojis

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the contemporary attention economy, follow Mia Sato. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

"KING BASEBALL, monarch of the American sport world, is sick," a New York Times story on the disappearance of amateur and small town sandlots begins. Hundreds of thousands of fans attended the opening games of the season, and star players are making bank in huge stadiums. "Nevertheless the critics say that his Royal Highness is indisposed."

The story is from 1925. But it read …

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]]> Mia Sato <![CDATA[More Shohei Ohtani content is coming to TikTok]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=883266 2026-02-24T08:36:51-05:00 2026-02-24T08:30:00-05:00
Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after hitting a single against the Toronto Blue Jays during the 2025 World Series at Rogers Center on November 1, 2025.

Major League Baseball wants more of a footprint on TikTok. Just in time for spring training, the two companies announced Tuesday they were partnering to expand baseball content on TikTok, including creating an MLB hub in the app and, of course, bringing in more influencers.

Baseball is coming back after a season that was especially culturally relevant. The World Series last fall had its highest viewership in years, and an increasingly international audience tuned in to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays after seven games and extra innings. There was a surge in interest on TikTok, too: The company says posts that includ …

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]]> Stevie Bonifield <![CDATA[Social media on trial: tech giants face lawsuits over addiction, safety, and mental health]]> https://www.theverge.com/?post_type=vm_stream&p=880850 2026-04-09T20:06:56-04:00 2026-02-18T16:27:09-05:00 A person holding up a smartphone with their face covered by pixels

A set of bellwether cases alleging that social media platforms harmed teens’ safety and mental health is going to trial this year, putting executives like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the stand to answer questions about what they’ve done or not done to protect kids.

Unlike many earlier legal challenges against social media companies, these cases managed to overcome the companies’ attempts to get them dismissed based on objections citing Section 230, a law that protects online platforms from being held liable for their users’ speech. They accuse companies like Meta, Snap, TikTok, and Google-owned YouTube of designing their platforms in ways that, the plaintiffs claim, they knew could contribute to addiction, depression, and anxiety. 

Follow along below for all of the latest updates from the trials we’re currently following.

]]> David Pierce <![CDATA[A Star is born]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=879129 2026-02-13T16:30:58-05:00 2026-02-16T06:00:00-05:00 Chrissy Teigen, Jelly Roll, Sara Michelle Gellar, and Anthony Anderson in front of red Netflix stars.

Two hours before one of the most important live events in Netflix's history, LA's sprawling CBS Radford Studio Center is abuzz with the strangest combination of things. As I walk through one cavernous soundstage on a Tuesday afternoon, I hear multiple people warming up their voices to sing. I pass a man carefully waving a hair dryer in front of a piano. Outside, a man and a woman, both in scant black leather, walk past with a wave. I'm told they're aerialists. Somewhere in this enormous rehearsal space, there's also a 74-year-old budding standup comedian, an 11-year-old gospel singer, and a dancing border collie.

Such is the wondrous, bizar …

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