AFTER FACEBOOK, IT’S TIKTOK TURN

TIKTOK HAS BECOME THE LATEST CHINESE FIRM CAUGHT IN U.S. REGULATORY CROSSFIRE, WITH WASHINGTON LAUNCHING A SECURITY REVIEW OF ITS $1 BILLION ACQUISITION OF US SOCIAL MEDIA APP, MUSICAL.LY. U.S. LAWMAKERS RAISED CONCERNS ABOUT ITS COLLECTION OF USER DATA AND WHETHER CHINA CENSORS CONTENT SEEN BY U.S. USERS. HERE ARE A FEW KEY FACTS ABOUT TIKTOK:

TikTok allows users to upload short videos with special effects, many of whom dance, jump and lip-sync to pop songs and music in the app. The app has especially created a buzz among US teenagers.

Around 60% of its 26.5 million monthly active users in the US are aged between 16 and 24, the company said earlier this year.

1B TikTok, one of the world's most popular apps with more than one billion downloads globally, offers easy-to-use editing tools, so users can simply edit the videos via their cellphones.

#4 It ranks fourth behind Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat as the most used social app in the US Google Play Store

TikTok’s success in the US market can be largely attributed to its acquisition of the lipsynching app Musical.ly in 2017.

Criticism: A US Senator asked for review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly, arguing that TikTok was being used by the Chinese government to censor politically sensitive content. Rubio said that despite Hong Kong protests dominating international headlines for months, TikTok only had a few videos of the protests. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg later said the app censored political protests. TikTok denies that China censors its content, saying it is not influenced by any foreign government.

In February, ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, agreed to pay a $5.7 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission in the US over TikTok’s illegal collection of personal information from minors.

In India, a local court ordered the federal government to temporarily ban new downloads of TikTok in April, saying the app was encouraging pornography and could expose children to sexual predators.