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TikTok has definitely become the platform for short form video content. It used to be YouTube, but it's since matured into a place to watch more well produced videos in the 20 minute range. If you haven't given TikTok a chance, try it out.
Wasn’t the tiktok app lambasted for being terribly intrusive and data-collecty?
Why would I want to watch short form video content? Genuinely curious here.
And they probably got there because Twitter killed Vine...
When was YouTube ever the platform for short form content. YouTube has for the longest time pushed for videos of at least 10/15mins in length - else their algorithm will downgrade you.

It’s only recently in response to TikTok that they had YouTube Shorts, a “timeline” that occasionally shows up on your feed consisting of 1-3mins(?) videos.

Ya, no. Chinese-shillin
I'll just relink to my last comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28024747:

> My impression is that TikTok is the most shameless exploiter of curating content to maximize attention. You resign all the control and hope to petition "the algorithm" to change what you get to see -- like some kind of a god that ultimatly controls you, no matter what you sacrifice. They are in a position to spread propaganda and prevent imformation from spreading -- or you from being heard. Even more so, this can be individualized (especially with the rise of virtual influencers). I wonder, if it might eventually be able to change someone's mind by slowly nudging them in the right direction, breaking down pre-existing beliefs and positions. And as youtube, twitter, etc. have shown, one of the main ways to increase addiction is to spread controversy. Have people screem and cry at one another, who wants mediation? Society is being reduced to a means of entertainment.

Considering that one out of eight human being are using this app is terrifying to me. Even more when considering that people in the third world might be less likely to use a video-intensive service like this, meaning that in the first-world, especially among people my age the rate is even higher! I consider it a concrete danger, that should be taken seriously.

This means one eighth of humanity uses tik tok once a month. Only about 3.8 billion people worldwide have a smartphone. We’re saying that about one in 4 smartphone users registers a hit on tik tok every month. That seems really high.
Considering that it is banned in India and not operating in China, these numbers do seem too high. There's probably a pretty large amount of people with multiple accounts, be it for companies/organizations or pushing their own profile further with vote- and view-manipulation.

That said, TikTok is everywhere in developing nations, and the younger generation in western countries is also fully hooked. Social media platforms are such an interesting business and social phenomenon, I half expected the sector to reach maturity with the options available once Instagram really took off... Now the new kid on the bloc is starting to overtake all the behemoths.

Maybe some people have multiple accounts, I agree that numbers seems too high
Methinks that includes ‘users’ visiting embeds. They create a user for anon web visitors and record their content interactions/preferences in local storage- you don’t have to be logged in for this to happen. I’ve been visiting tiktok.com without an account or the app and they serve consistently similar content to that user based on my interactions.
One of the most surprising things to me about TikTok is that it isn't a Bay Area startup. For the longest time every hot social media app/platform was American.
That's because TikTok gets something that people here don't.

Just look at this comment thread; very few people understand what's positive about TikTok, what's new and different about it, and why both Instagram and YouTube can't catch up.

Literally all criticisms apply to Instagram too, but TikTok is not Instagram.

That's because TikTok is way more decentralized than any other photo/video platform: it's less creator/consumer relationship, and more of a community, like reddit or HN, where you communicate with video snippets.

I.e. by talking, which is natural for us. It's a big, asynchronous in-person dialogue.

There's content too, but that's not what makes the platform unique.

Why the Bay Area is blind to that, I can't comprehend.

I think it's more interesting to me what a well executed marketing coup it was for them to go from Musically to TikTok. It's almost something that completely changed the platforms image... Musically when it was a thing was pretty much solely associated with underage people doing silly dances. Basically a platform for kids that most adults didn't even consider being a part of. But with TikTok that changed. It still has that same content of course but it is no longer limited to that and it no longer seems shady to most people.
Depends how you want to track it. TikTok was previously Musical.ly, and they had a Santa Monica office. The other famous app out of Santa Monica? Snapchat
I wonder how many of these users are unique. TikTok makes it simple to have two or more accounts. A number of content creators (especially ones who make NSFW non-nude content) have alt accounts that they can use when their main gets muted.
Meanwhile FB, Instagram and twitter are full of bots and fake profile.

Something that definitely can be done in TikTok also but the nature of the content (video) make it more complicated.

FB is full of people with double profile also, I've friends that have been having two profiles for ages. I think is a common issue

Those two or more accounts have a shared device id
Yes. These numbers are probably made up.

Instagram despite being around for much longer and not being banned in the largest internet market (India) has only 1B MAU.

Tiktok isn't available in China either. That's a different app from bytedance if I understand it correctly

It seems insane how quickly they did it. How long did it take for YouTube to reach 1B MAUs?
Youtube also started in a very different world in regard to ubiquitous online access, not to mention mobile online access.
Everything I know about TikTok I've learned from ItsAGundam[1] and ReplicantPhish[2]. I steer clear of it, and don't see the appeal. Not to mention my general aversion to supporting a CCP mass social engineering / information operations platform.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EU_gdYAYDw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCduKlmN88c

TikTok has been banned in India for a while now. Imagine where it'd be if it wasn't.
Is their anything to replace it india, or is it back to cricket and Bollywood (the two industries it threatened ) ?
Am I the only one who sees it as a problem that US and European companies can't really work on China market, but they leave their markets wide open for Chinese companies?

Like, no company is allowed in US/Europe if it does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state? Isn't it how conforming to local rules and regulations should work?

UPD: clarification due to people mentioning Mercedes, etc: my comment was mostly directed at internet companies.

That's the unique/controlling way that China works. They block foreign apps to spur the development of local alternatives. But plenty of western businesses have thrived in China. KFC, Pizza Hut, Apple, Audi to name a few off hand. I definitely suggest visiting a Pizza Hut in China some time in your life, it's an experience (they serve wine).
> Like, no company is allowed in US/Europe if it does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state?

But not even US or most Europe formally recognizes Taiwan as a country. In Europe only Holy See in Vatican recognizes.

apple, bmw, mercedes benz, ikea would like a word with you
there’s Huawei and others that can’t work in the US https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-...
If TikTok ever adds group chat, it’ll be the primary messaging tool in my household. Hell, it may be right now even without that.
Nice. TikTok is very fast paced. For me it has done so many oscillations between "this is very interesting stuff" to "it is trash now, it used to be good" that it's kind of making a fool of me. Not the usual slow downwards curve of most sites. Something about how it works means it seems to continuously re-invent itself.
Magnificent news for the investors in Bytedance since those monthly 1B users on TikTok are providing great shareholder value for them and when Bytedance IPOs it will give a massive return on investment for them.

As for the users, who cares? they are working for the algorithm like before and its business as usual.

Shows how great alibaba's cloud is

It's sad they recently got forced to use something else in the west, i bet that was one of the conditions to avoid getting banned in the west ;)

That's why we can't have nice things

Looks like the american's administration don't want cloud competition globally, reminds me of Alstom's story, and recently OVH 'fires', sort of

- https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/TikTok-owner-ByteDa...

Nice. I wonder what kind of social media is gonna grow next to tiktok/fb/insta
Is there auditing on their #s ?
MAUs?
Why would anyone willfully give their bio-metrics to China?
how much data have they harvested to target anti china activities you reckon? i've had videos removed talking about politics in china
Just a little scary a Chinese company is shaping the minds of our youth.
I would have thought governments would be more worried about China spying on everyone and the insane data collection from TikTok (yes it might have an American operator in the US, but I can imagine they found a way to still siphon all that data to the mainland)...its a pretty big security risk if one thinks about it
How? I know exactly zero people who uses it. However, I do see TikTok videos on Instagram and Facebook all the time.
Anyone who willfully signs up for foreign surveillance is simply dumb. There's no other way to put it. That applies (to a lesser extent, but applies all the same) to folks from other countries that sign up for the likes of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or whatever else the US Government can coerce into "intelligence data sharing", and increasingly narrative peddling and censorship. Even if you are liberal, this will to eventually bite you in the ass, and it'll be bad.
I worry about a platform controlled by China influencing so much of the world's conversation. For instance, the CCP could use moderation and algorithms to alter exposure of protests concerning Hong Kong or movements to free Tibet. Alternatively they could amplify the most extreme and divisive political content that destabilizes their adversaries. Whenever a platform grows to be this big, we need to treat it like a government unto itself, because it literally has government-scale influence and power. Platforms at that scale need to be regulated and treated like a public-run service (with transparency, neutrality, and local government control). It is absolutely bizarre to outsource control of society's speech to giant private platforms, especially ones that are under the control of a foreign government with a long track record of coercing its private companies.