ByteDance

What Can TikTok Offer to Societies? Beyond What Meets the Eye

We all know it. By now, it has become one of the leading mainstream platforms, bringing to the social media scene a new feature and a new form of entertainment, reels. It is TikTok, the short-form video entertainment platform that in no time usurped one of the internet’s leading social media kings, Instagram. Used by […]

TikTok Issues: Data Privacy and Children’s Rights Violations

TikTok issues have been the talk of the world lately, especially data privacy and children’s rights violations. Lately, numerous countries are banning TikTok citing security concerns. It comes down to two main reasons: data privacy and the lack of protection for children and minors. The application has 1.534 billion users out of which 1 billion […]

Will TikTok Ever Move Out of the Gun Sights of Governments?

TikTok has been making headlines ever since it debuted and went viral. Is “viral” even the right word to describe the cultural reset it triggered? Unfortunately, most of these headlines are not in the app’s favor, including adding to the mental health crisis among U.S. teens AND United Arab Emirates (UAE) teens and spreading misinformation […]

Factbox - Why a Broad US TikTok Ban Is Unlikely to Take Effect Soon

A recent ban of TikTok use on U.S. government-owned devices, coupled with new legislation in Congress seeking to block the app, have fueled expectations the popular Chinese-owned platform could soon be barred nationwide. Adding to the perception, last week the company said the Biden administration had demanded TikTok’s owners divest their stakes in the popular […]

UK's National Cyber Security Centre Reviewing TikTok Risks, Minister Says

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre is reviewing whether Chinese-owned video app TikTok should be banned from government phones, security minister Tom Tugendhat said on Tuesday. TikTok has come under increasing focus over fears that user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests. The United States, Canada, Belgium […]

TikTok Wins US Trademark Trial Over Stitch Video Feature

Bytedance’s TikTok Inc persuaded a federal jury in Los Angeles on Thursday that its Stitch feature does not violate trademark rights belonging to British video-editing company Stitch Editing Ltd. The jury rejected Stitch Editing’s argument that TikTok confuses consumers by using the Stitch name to brand the popular social-media platform’s technology for “stitching” videos together. […]

Regulator Visits ByteDance's Douyin to Discuss Revised Pricing Rules

Beijing’s market regulator recently visited ByteDance’s Douyin video hosting service to look into the company’s livestreaming e-commerce business and discuss how to prevent over-charging, a statement, published on Thursday on the regulator’s official WeChat account, said. The regulator’s visit to Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok – comes at a time when Beijing has […]

The Forbes TikTok Clash

In the age of social media, it is difficult to differentiate when an individual excessively shares on their social platforms. Yet sharing our personal information is not always within our control. The Forbes TikTok conflict started on October 20, 2022, when the leading business magazine published an article accusing TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, of taking […]