Welcome to the bifurcated world of Tik-Tok, an emerging social-media powerhouse that lets users create and share short videos, many no longer than 15 seconds.
From the perspective of teens, TikTok is a major new outlet for self-expression, one proudly home to the silly, the loud and the weird.
To others, the Chinese-owned online video service is an unnerving black box that could be sharing information with the Chinese government, facilitating espionage, or just promoting videos and songs some parents consider lewd.
U.S. lawmakers are worried about national security and censorship risks posed by TikTok’s Chinese ownership.
TikTok draws so much attention because it’s the first China-owned social-media service to make serious inroads in the West. It’s a smash in the U.S. and other countries, attracting celebrities and companies eager to reach kids and young adults disconnected from traditional media.
But many security experts worry about the information sucked up by the service. People’s social connections, biometric data and interests that would be useful to an advertiser could also assist a hostile government in cultivating spies or tracking dissidents, says John Dermody, a former official with the National Security Council and Department of Homeland Security.
TikTok now insists that it doesn’t do so, nor would it even if the Chinese government asked it to. As for spying, the company denies it and says it stores U.S. user data in the U.S. and Singapore, not China.
But no matter what is said, it doesn't take away from the fact that to many users, what’s special is TikTok’s goofiness and sense of fun. To use, just download the app and start swiping through videos.
You don’t have to friend anyone or search for anything to watch. On this app you are likely to encounter a barrage of funny, meme-y videos from total strangers that TikTok spools up for you, personalizing the feed as you go.
