As a brief introduction, ByteDance’s fun popular app for making short seconds or short-form videos Tik-Tok due to its increased popularity amongst youths and teenagers is now one of the most popular mobile apps in the world.
Also, for the year 2019, Tik Tok is also one of the most downloaded apps. Tik Tok is even more downloaded than Facebook and Instagram.
The app which has caught the attention of the ‘Gen Z’ with an estimation of 625 million active users worldwide or globally. The fame and fast rise of the app is currently facing scrutiny by the U.S lawmakers who are concerned that the app is linked to China.
This became an issue of consideration after Feroza Aziz a 17-year-old teenager in New Jersey made a viral video with its content talking about the Chinese government’s unfair treatment of the Uighurs and Muslim minorities in camps.
Beijing said this detention is an effort to eradicate terrorism and extremism. The 17-year-old account was banned which seem like it was because of the video she made about the Chinese government, but Tik-Tok said her account was banned from a totally different reason.
That Aziz’s account was banned for violation of the company’s policies. Beijing censor contents that are deemed sensitive in China. This, however, is a thing of concern for the US government because they feel Tik-Tok might begin to censor contents in other countries. Tic-Tok, however, debunked that they do not censor contents on the app.
Another issue of concern for Washington is how Tik-Tok acquired Musical.ly which is now merged with Tik-Tok. And also if the Chinese government has access to User data.
One of the spokesmen of the company affirmed that the company’s higher priority is earning of Users and regulators in the U.S.
