Article courtesy of The New York Times writer, Kevin Roose.
TikTok — a Chinese-made app that was known as Musical.ly until ByteDance, the Chinese internet conglomerate, acquired the company in 2017 and merged it with a video app it owned — has a simple premise. Users create short videos set to music, often lip-syncing along, dancing or acting out short skits. The app contains templates and visual effects to spice up the videos. There is also a live-streaming feature that allows users to send virtual “gifts” to their favorite creators, which can be bought with real money. The rest works like any other social app — followers, hashtags, likes and comments.
TikTok is a place where people can let down their guards, act silly with their friends and sample the fruits of human creativity without being barraged by abusive trolls or algorithmically amplified misinformation. It’s a throwback to a time before the commercialization of internet influence, when web culture consisted mainly of harmless weirdos trying to make each other laugh.
“It’s a bit of an escape,” said Billy Mann, a TikTok creator who uses the platform to make comedy videos for his more than 650,000 followers.
“It’s a safe haven for people that are seeing the world on fire and being like, ‘I need silliness,’” he said.
Officially, TikTok users must be 13 or older to join. But the age-verification process is easy to circumvent, and while browsing the platform. “It’s clearly a really popular, cool site, but you also have the issue of kids being significantly too young for it,” said James P. Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that reviews tech products for families. “It’s not that the content on TikTok isn’t O.K. for your 15-year-old. It’s what happens to your 6- or 7-year-old.”
A TikTok spokeswoman said in a statement that promoting safety and positivity on the platform is “our top priority.” She added, “we periodically add to and adjust our protective measures, policies and moderation efforts to support the well-being of our users.”
Despite TikTok’s teens-only vibe, some adults have started to trickle on. Jimmy Fallon, the late-night TV host, recently joined the site and started posting his own challenges. The comedian Amy Schumer recently made a TikTok video, and prominent YouTubers like Jake Paul have tested the waters.
Is TikTok a Facebook killer? No, probably not. For all the variety in its videos, it is still a fairly limited app, with a more narrow appeal than more populist social platforms.
But by purposely limiting its features, by resisting the temptation to monetize its users aggressively and by keeping trolls and bullies off its platform, TikTok has done something truly impressive — it has built a social network that is genuinely fun to use.
There might be a lesson there.