A Look Into TikTok’s Origins, Controversy & Future
By: Matt Houser
Tags: Bytedance, Social Media, Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Tiktok App

Within the past few years there hasn’t been any other app that has gone from being controversial, loved, to controversial again as much as TikTok has. In fact, it wasn’t always known as TikTok to begin with. Let’s look at how TikTok evolved from being a different app, becoming one of the most utilized apps, to grabbing the attention of the President & the world.

From Musical.ly to TikTok

TikTok wasn’t always known as it is today. Founded in 2014, it actually started as an app by the name of Musical.ly that allowed users to lip sync multiple different songs in 15-second to 1-minute intervals. Several speed options along with filters and effects could also be applied- which isn’t so different from TikTok today. While Musical.ly got nowhere near as popular as TikTok, the app managed to get around 90 million active users in June of 2016. A little over a year later a company known as ByteDance acquired the app for $1 Billion USD and ended up merging it with an app of their own (TikTok).

All users of Musical.ly were brought over into TikTok and from that point on Musical.ly was no more. A lot of the aspects and features of Musical.ly however lived on and were integrated into TikTok. These included being able to film a video alongside a different users video, filter effects, etc. While many old features remained there were a bunch of new, contemporary additions that eventually led to its huge success as well. These included the “For You” page which suggests content based on your activity within the app and features such as video replies that allowed you to react to comments from ones previous videos.

Exiled to Accepted

“TikTok went from having a community of dancing stars to memes, hilarious original content, and more which just kept expanding.”

While the hype around TikTok has gotten to the point it’s at today, it wasn’t actually always loved as much as you’d think. In the beginning TikTok was looked down upon by many and “cringey” as much as its predecessor Musical.ly was. It wasn’t until other content entered the app which expanded the user base in a way that allowed others to be part of a different sub-community. TikTok went from having a community of dancing stars to memes, hilarious original content, and more which just kept expanding. By utilizing hashtag features users were able to create pretty much anything you could think of. Those videos could then be searched by their respective hashtag, allowing users who wanted to watch certain content an easy way to find, follow, and keep coming back to it.

The app was gaining traction ever since acquired but it wasn’t until late 2019 where there was a huge uptick in active users. Today, TikTok stands at ~800 million monthly active users according to Oberlo. That’s a 788% increase from 2016 and quite an accomplishment considering it’s only been a few years.

Power of Social

As TikTok grew we also saw a rise of in- app celebrities such as Charli & Dixie D’Amelio, Addison Rae, Isabella Avila, Loren Grey and more. Mansions were even dedicated to certain groups of TikTokers where they could collectively create content such as the Hype House & Sway House. Multiple other users also began growing immense followings and ended up landing huge brand deals with companies. One in particular, Hollister Co., teamed up with the D’Amelio sisters to launch a back-to-school campaign. Their competitor, American Eagle, also took advantage of this and teamed up with Addison Rae to launch their AExME Back to School 2020 campaign.

Other than advertisers benefiting from TikTok’s large base — seemingly ordinary users essentially launched their own careers from within the app. TikTok changed the lives of many and it goes to show how powerful growing a following is and the role that social apps play. If users could create such a huge impact for themselves- how much of an impact could those behind these apps make? What’s the scale of those powers and should we be concerned of their own foreign governments intervening?

The Controversies

“I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying.”

Security & privacy threat concerns started in late 2019 back when the app was gaining a lot traction. As more people were using the app, more security concerns grew with it. This led the US government to launching a national security review into ByteDance. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which reviews the deals by foreign acquirers for possible security risks at a national level, started an investigation into the BtyeDance x Musical.ly deal. What did they find? Unfortunately their reviews are confidential to the public and there were no final conclusions which got disclosed. However, we do know that ByteDance is a Chinese founded company headquartered in Beijing and has been backed by multiple other Chinese investors. While that in itself isn’t something that should be looked at as a red flag, what the app does that you don’t notice should.

Users began taking a closer look at the app a few months after the CFIUS conducted their review. In early April of this year a user on Reddit reverse engineered the app and found multiple security threats which included intrusive tracking. Reddit’s CEO and co-founder, Steve Huffman, even commented about the apps dodgy work during a panel discussion. “I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying.”

All of this investigating and communist China conspiracy building eventually caught the attention of the President of the United States which has put us exactly where we are today. On August 6th, Trump signed an executive order which would effectively ban the app from the United States starting September 20th. The catch is if an American company acquires the app TikTok could be spared. Microsoft and reportedly Twitter are in talks with ByteDance to make a deal- Will it happen? We’ll find out soon enough.

Path Ahead

What the future of TikTok here in the United States will be remains a mystery, however there are several rivals that are here to stay — Byte, Triller, Clash Video and Instagrams new Reels feature are all reminiscent to the fundamentals of TikTok. It’s going to be interesting seeing how each of these evolve and compete for the success TikTok has seen. Are we going to see more surges of influencers? Will there be new ways for Brands to advertise on these platforms? It’s always exciting when competition forces innovation which in turn benefits the marketing and strategy efforts of brands.

TikTok is an app the world will always remember no matter if these are its final days in the US or not. It has created such an impact and tension that we haven’t seen with other apps that it truly begs for us to step back and take in account the power these social apps have. Should users and brands be more concerned? Only time will tell.