The Definitive TikTok Timeline
By: Harry Wahl
Tags: Tiktok App, Trump Administration, Social Media, Regulation, Tik Tok

How did a Chinese social media app go from a viral sensation to almost banned in America? While the crystal ball is murky for the future of one of the premiere social media apps in the world, the rear view mirror offers a clear picture of the TikTok timeline leading to the present.

The Beginning

The internet technology company ByteDance was founded in 2012 in Beijing. The company developed a series of apps including the short form video app called TikTok and it’s Chinese counterpart called Douyin. In 2017 ByteDance bought the Shanghai based app Musical.ly and merged it with TikTok to create the modern app experience users see today.

World Domination

From January of 2018 to August of 2020, TikTok’s monthly active users in the United States rose 800% from 11 million to over 100 million. Meanwhile the global growth grew at an even more exponential rate to nearly 700 million monthly active users. This surging demand launched TikTok into the top ten most popular social media platforms and past household names like Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit.

Troubled Waters

Similar to many other Chinese companies, ByteDance has strong ties and a strategic partnerships with the Chinese Communist Party. This has not hindered the company’s global growth but it has drawn a fair share of security concerns from world leaders including a TikTok ban in India. Meanwhile America’s approach to dealing with these alleged security issues has not been as black and white.

Citing national security concerns, President Trump issued an executive order in August giving ByteDance 90 days to divest from their American assets and any data TikTok gathered on American users. This was already a pivot from previous Trump musings in June about banning the app altogether. Nevertheless, the search was on for a US based company to buyout the American TikTok business. How hard could it be?

Nearly impossible. That’s how hard it was. Oracle, Microsoft, and Walmart all stepped up to the plate and received a green light from the Trump administration to swing but questions started to pile up about just what exactly they were buying. The biggest question was would the sale include the all powerful algorithm that powered TikTok? For any social media platform the underlying algorithm is the secret sauce or gold mine that keeps users engaged, watching videos, and seeing advertisements. Without the algorithm any purchaser would essentially just be buying a group of users.

While this central question lingered Oracle and Walmart came together and proposed a joint purchase that received Trump’s seal of approval in September ….only for him to revoke his approval less than a week later with concerns that the deal didn’t go far enough. With the self imposed Trump time limit quickly approaching, TikTok received numerous extensions on their sale deadline. Reports indicate that sales talks are continuing in the background.

The Future?

As of the time of writing this piece, the new deadline for action regarding TikTok is February 18, 2020, about a month into the Biden administration. While there has been no significant TikTok movement since the summer, security experts agree that the same risks that existed in 2020 still exist today. It is unclear however what the Biden administration’s approach to TikTok will be. For the time being TikTok has considerable more leverage at the negotiating table then they did over the summer after outlasting President Trump.

So fear not TikTok lover — there is still plenty of time and dancing videos to discover. Just be careful what you post because ByteDance is tracking you coast to coast.