TikTok

TikTok is the social media sensation that all of Silicon Valley — and a lot of Washington, DC — has their eyes on. The app, created by ByteDance, became famous for rocketing musicians and dancers to stardom. But as its popularity and influence have grown, so has scrutiny of its privacy policies, security, and influence, with legislators voicing concern about its ownership by a Chinese firm. Meanwhile, social media competitors are doing everything they can to knock off TikTok’s features and usurp its short-form video dominance.

Emma RothJun 5

NYT report reveals how Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube grabbed kids’ attention in school.

Internal documents, which were disclosed as part of a wave of child safety lawsuits filed by school districts across the US, showed:

Snapchat sent phone alerts to adolescents during school hours, urging them to share what was going on in their classrooms.
Meta paid “teen ambassadors” to promote Instagram and hand out swag to their friends at school.
TikTok gave the National PTA millions of dollars, in part to throw school events about online safety and provide favorable comments to journalists.

Anything can be a cyberdeck now

Stevie BonifieldJun 4

AI grifters are creating fake Black people to sell Shein junk

Can race, guilt, and empathy get you to pay $40 for this $9 belt buckle on TikTok?

Nicole FroioMay 30

One of Meta’s big legal reckonings just ended in a settlement

Lauren FeinerMay 21

Marina GalperinaMay 21

Some people are losing too much weight in Retatrutide trial.

Randomized trial results of the experimental GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon drug shows that it may be too effective, while causing a whopping 11% of participants at the highest dose to drop out because of the severity of the side effects. In Optimizer, Victoria Song covered TikTok influencers pushing grey market knockoffs of “Ratatouille” and attempted to find out what was actually in them. (Please don’t buy shady “Retatrutide” from the internet.)

Snap, YouTube, and TikTok settle suit over harm to students

Terrence O'BrienMay 16

Mia SatoMay 12

TikTok wants travelers to book their trips through the app.

Starting today, US users will be able to book hotels, tours, and ticketed experiences directly in the app. Travel content is a major category on the platform, so it makes sense for TikTok to want a hand in the actual booking process, not just discovery. Content creators will also be able to earn commissions from reservations made through their content.

TikTok app screens showing a hotel in San Fransisco tagged in a video. The user is then able to book a stay through TikTok.

Image: TikTok

TikTok is letting UK users pay to remove ads

Jess WeatherbedMay 11

Emma RothMay 6

TikTok is scaling back its AI-powered video summaries.

A TikTok spokesperson tells Business Insider that the feature will now identify products in a video, instead of attempting to summarize what happens in it.

Users have reported some wildly inaccurate AI video descriptions, like one that described Charli D’Amelio as a “collection of various blueberries with different toppings,” according to Business Insider.

TikTok pulls back on an AI feature that described Charli D'Amelio as a collection of blueberries

[Business Insider]

It’s primetime for conspiracy theorist video creators

Charles Pulliam-MooreApr 28

Emma RothApr 22

US lawmakers call on TikTok to add age verification.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) have written a letter to TikTok USDS CEO Adam Presser, urging the platform to estimate users’ age using their account activity or require parents to confirm their child’s age. The lawmakers also suggest that TikTok works with OS-makers like Apple and Google to implement age verification:

For example, if a user is designated as a child in their iCloud account, meaning they are under 13, Apple could share that information with TikTok and the user therefore would not be able to create a TikTok account.

Correction, April 22nd: The name is Josh Gottheimer, not John.

The Iranian Lego AI video creators credit their virality to ‘heart’

Explosive Media is going up against the White House in a meme war.

Charles Pulliam-MooreApr 10

Thomas RickerApr 10

Lame loses his sparkle.

TikTok star Khaby Lame sold his personal brand to a small, relatively unknown company called “Rich Sparkle Holdings.” Instead of handing him $975 million in cash, they paid him in stock. Fans piled in, causing the price to skyrocket, briefly making Lame a paper billionaire (several times over) before the price plummeted. It’s now looking suspiciously like a “pump-and-dump” scheme, causing trading apps to freeze the stock. 🤷‍♂️

TikTok's top star teased a $975 million deal and then went silent. Red flags are piling up.

[Business Insider]

Why can’t TikTok identify AI generated ads when I can?

Jess WeatherbedMar 28

Tubi and TikTok are partnering to produce long form series

Charles Pulliam-MooreMar 19

Trump administration is allegedly collecting $10 billion on the TikTok deal

Terrence O'BrienMar 14

Emma RothMar 13

Canada gives TikTok the green light to continue operating in the country.

The decision reverses a 2024 order for TikTok to shut down its operations in the country, and comes after an agreement that TikTok will implement “enhanced protection” for Canadians’ personal information.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which previously warned against using TikTok, said Canadians should “proceed cautiously” when joining new platforms and “conduct their own research on the type of data being collected,” CTV News reports.

Spy agency won't release its TikTok advice to Ottawa, urges caution online

[CTVNews]

You can soon listen to Apple Music inside of TikTok — and artists get paid for it

Jess WeatherbedMar 11

Another Oracle outage is messing up US TikTok

Stevie BonifieldMar 3

How MLB can make baseball relevant on a fast-changing internet

The old sport is going all-in on chasing virality.

Mia SatoMar 1

More Shohei Ohtani content is coming to TikTok

Mia SatoFeb 24

Social media on trial: tech giants face lawsuits over addiction, safety, and mental health

Stevie BonifieldMay 21

A Star is born

One night in the audience of Netflix’s most ambitious live show yet.

David PierceFeb 16

Thomas RickerFeb 16

Actually, few TikTok USA users defected.

A new Sensor Tower report suggests the USDS takeover managed to retain most of its users despite a bumpy start and concerns with the new owners:

The average number of TikTok’s daily active users in the US remains around 95% of its usership compared to the week of Jan. 19-25.

What’s in the Epstein files? For Tiktokers, a content gold mine

Niamh RoweFeb 13

TikTok launches Local Feeds in the US

Stevie BonifieldFeb 11

TikTok’s infinite scroll is too addictive, say EU regulators

Dominic PrestonFeb 6

Thomas RickerFeb 2

TikTok USA is back.

We can confirm that basic features in the US do seem to work reliably now on the new Trump-friendly entity’s servers, even if the algorithm still seems a little wonky at times. Per TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC:

We have successfully restored TikTok back to normal after a significant outage caused by winter weather took down a primary US data center site operated by Oracle. The winter storm led to a power outage which caused network and storage issues at the site and impacted tens of thousands of servers that help keep TikTok running in the US.

Great, but how many of ya’ll have abandoned the platform?

Who’s afraid of the new TikTok?

Mia SatoJan 30

Richard LawlerJan 28

Oracle admits it broke TikTok.

Without explaining why its cloud status page doesn’t list any outages, TikTok USDS part-owner Oracle outed itself as the previously unnamed “US data center partner” that experienced a power outage over the weekend, blocking videos from publishing and unraveling its all-important algorithm for a few days.

Michael Egbert, Oracle Spokesperson:
Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok. The challenges U.S. TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve.

TikTok US is mostly back up and running

Richard LawlerJan 27

Lauren FeinerJan 27

TikTok moves to settle a major social media addiction case shortly before trial.

It follows Snap in reaching an agreement to resolve the first of several cases slated to go to trial this year about social media’s alleged harm to users, an attorney for the 19-year-old plaintiff confirmed. That leaves Meta and YouTube as defendants in the case going to jury selection today.

2026 is the year of social media’s legal reckoning

Lauren Feiner

Jan 26

Truth and AI in Minneapolis

David PierceJan 27

Richard LawlerJan 27

TikTok is still struggling in the US due to a “cascading systems failure.”

TikTok’s US service crashed early Sunday morning, and as of late Monday night, it still hasn’t fully recovered.

After finally announcing the problem started with a power outage at an unnamed partner’s data center, TikTok USDS followed up with an updated statement saying, “While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we’ve been working to resolve together with our data center partner,” and listing some of the bugs users are experiencing. There’s still no ETA for a full fix.

We’re continuing to resolve a major infrastructure issue triggered by a power outage at one of our U.S. data center partner sites. While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we’ve been working to resolve together with our data center partner. What this means for your Tik Tok experience: . You may notice multiple bugs, slower load times, or timed-out requests, including when posting new content. Creators may temporarily see “0” views or likes on videos, and your earnings may look like they’re missing. This is a display error caused by server timeouts; your actual data and engagement are safe. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to bring TikTok back to full capacity as soon as we can. TikTok USDS JV

Image: TikTok USDSJV (X)

TikTok is still down, here are all the latest updates

Richard LawlerFeb 2

Richard LawlerJan 27

Is New TikTok banning the word “Epstein” in DMs? Not really.

Despite claims floating around social media, the truth is a bit more complicated, not least by the fact that TikTok in the US is still largely down, about a day and a half after its data center power outage problems started.

While tweets from random users, the governor of California, and PopBase claimed TikTok US DMs now censor “Epstein,” testing it from our end showed that its messaging feature bans many innocuous single-word messages, like “test.” Using the convicted sex offender’s name in a sentence, however, goes through unbanned.

A screenshot of a TikTok DM conversation showing messages for single words like “Epstein” and “test” are blocked, but using the word Epstein in a sentence is not, contrary to rumors claiming otherwise..

TikTok DM screenshot showing the words “Epstein” and “test” trip the service’s ban by themselves, but not in a sentence.

Emma RothJan 26

TikTok’s new owners and your FYP.

Oracle and a group of investors now control TikTok in the US, and promise to retrain the app’s algorithm on US user data. Though TikTok blames some of the issues users experienced over the weekend on a power outage, many are still concerned about how their feed could change.