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.
Painter Steven Novak made what he calls a “portal painting” — a concave painting meticulously made to be a little like sticking your head inside of a 360-degree (or, I suppose, 180-degree, in this case) picture and looking around.
Here’s another video showing, in more detail, how he made it. He doesn’t reveal how much it costs to make, but it sounds like it’s... probably more than a Vision Pro.
At one point during this episode, as we discuss our Vision Pro review — and the reaction we’ve seen from around the web — Nilay begins to debate how he’s scored every Apple product ever. It’s that kind of Vergecast, y’all. And then, as TikTok loses a key music partner and foists shopping on users everywhere, we wonder: is it time to call the top on TikTok?
What started as a kid’s dancing app has changed significantly in recent years. At a Senate hearing on child safety happening now, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said the average user on the platform is well into adulthood.
Chew is among the group of tech executives testifying today. Read his full opening statement below.
At least it will be once X, formerly Twitter, hires 100 employees into its new trust and safety team to moderate its roughly 500M global monthly users.
In the run-up to a child sexual exploitation hearing later today with tech CEOs at the US Senate, TikTok says it will spend more than $2 billion on trust and safety globally, administered by a team of more than 40,000 people. TikTok now has over 170 million monthly active users just in the US, up from 150 million last year, and about 1 billion users globally.
The corporate home to Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Drake is preparing to stop licensing its music to TikTok, due to disagreements over issues like artist compensation and AI, Variety reports.
In an open letter to the artist community, UMG claims “TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.” Its current licensing agreement with TikTok expires on January 31.
The company is building livestreaming studios in cities including Los Angeles, according to The Information. Influencers will then stream and sell products to their followers from the TikTok studios.
TikTok’s future is increasingly looking like an endless digital shopping mall: in an effort to cram more shopping links into content, the company is testing a feature that automatically identifies items in a video and prompts viewers to buy them.
[The Information]
At some point, we should probably question whether TikTok is still actually a short form video platform. As TechCrunch reports, TikTok is now testing 30 minute-long videos with some users — which is more like a YouTube video essay than a TikTok clip.
TikTok has gradually stretched the length of videos, and right now users can upload content up to 10 minutes long. Creators who monetize on the platform can also share 20 minute paywalled videos that fans buy access to.
The Democratic representative from California, whose district includes Apple and Nvidia, discusses the future of tech regulation and the 2024 election.
Around 60 workers in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, and places outside the US were laid off at TikTok, according to a report from NPR. The layoffs mainly affect workers on TikTok’s sales and advertising teams and follow a string of job cuts from other tech companies this year, including Google, Amazon, Unity, and Discord.
Update January 23rd, 5:16PM ET: Added updated details about the layoffs.
But there’s something satisfying about this TikTok account’s low-tech videos using popsicle sticks, some thick wire, some cardboard, and a power drill to simulate engine sounds.
How one cover of one mostly unknown song became the soundtrack of terrifying vertical videos.
Netflix: probably a winner in 2024. Disney Plus: rough times ahead. Peacock? Paramount Plus? Will they even exist in 12 months? Alex Cranz and I get to the bottom of this year’s streaming wars, and also maybe talk E Ink a little. But first: you know that creepy sound on TikTok videos about the North Sea? We have a story for you about that.
Chad the Bird, a comedy puppet, gives a surprisingly succinct high-level explanation for what happened when Willis Gibson, AKA Blue Scuti, became the first known person to crash Tetris.
This video is also... weirdly inspirational. For a slightly more technical and equally digestible explanation, check out YouTuber HydrantDude’s video.
I feel for Peppur Triplett, who told Business Insider she turned to the game as a COVID escape. She spent 10 years overall amassing her fortune and becoming the #11 player of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. And it shuts down in April.
The accessorizing fame game may not be my first choice, but I hate to see someone lose their favorite game. Free-to-play breaks everyone’s heart, eventually.
The fitness brand will show a mix of content in a new hub on the app, called #TikTokFitness Powered by Peloton, as the company shifts its focus to creating content instead of pricey workout equipment. In the hub, Peloton will show short-form classes, select live sessions, and collaborations between instructors and TikTok creators in an attempt to draw new users in.
Starting April 1st, TikTok will raise seller fees from two to six percent, reports The Information, before raising them to eight percent on many items on July 1st while still taking a lower cut of pricier products like electronics.
In some segments, TikTok’s new fees remain lower than Amazon’s, which are also dropping as both face competition from cheap outlets like Shein and Temu. The report also cites a source saying the TikTok Shop’s seller subsidies are being cut back after it lost about $500 million last year.
[The Information]
It’s a TV. It’s a roller coaster. It’s a 4D Disney World experience. It’s the Sphere, and it’s a lot more fun than my phone.
TikTok announced that the updated app will take better advantage of tablet and foldable screen real estate by pushing overlaid text to the side. The app also now works in portrait or landscape mode for devices where it didn’t previously, the company wrote.
Meanwhile, in the year 2023, Instagram on the iPad is just a crummy, blown-up iPhone app.
Green walks through the intricacies between TikTok, Reels, and Shorts — along with his earnings from each. The gist is Shorts > TikTok > Reels in terms of CPM, but watch the full clip for more context.
Creators are in a weird spot right now: TikTok wants videos longer than a minute, and Shorts only allows clips up to 60 seconds. And even when you’re making money, it’s hard to understand the exact breakdown.
He’s an elephant seal currently riling up a community in Tasmania. He is also all over TikTok. Obviously, I’m on the side of unruly elephant seals, whether in California or elsewhere. He’s perfect and I love him.
That’s according to the company’s quarterly report, published today. The 136 million figure is just under 1 percent of all videos published between July and September. Removals last quarter spiked — in the months preceding, TikTok removed around 106 million clips.
ByteDance reportedly scrapped it after sales of last year’s Pico 4 “fell far short of ByteDance’s expectations,” according to a report by The Information. The last headset still hasn’t launched in the US, as political heat has stayed on ByteDance and its other well-known project, TikTok.
However, the report also claims Pico engineers are working on a long-term “Swan” concept to develop a high-end headset inspired by Apple’s Vision Pro.
The ban was challenged by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in July, arguing that it’s “preventing or seriously impeding faculty” from undertaking research related to the app. College students and staff across the state have nevertheless found ways to sneak around the ban.
US District Judge Robert Pitman rejected the suit on Monday, calling the ban a “reasonable restriction” in light of Texas’ concerns about data privacy.
This happened last week, but I saw it today because of Techdirt’s great post about the dismissal. Indiana’s attorney general actually filed two lawsuits against TikTok in December 2022, but they were consolidated, the Associated Press reports.
US District Judge Donald W. Molloy issued a preliminary injunction (pdf) blocking the ban on Thursday, as reported by Reuters. The ban had been set to take effect on January 1st. TikTok sued Montana shortly after Governor Greg Gianforte signed SB 419 in May.
The money will go towards Project Clover, TikTok’s initiative to house European user data on local servers to address concerns from regulators.
TikTok’s data center in Ireland is already up and running, but it’s already working on another in Norway, where it expects data migration to begin in late 2024. Once complete, TikTok says its Norway facility will be the “largest data centre in Europe.”
