ByteDance is owned by its founders and Chinese investors (20%), other global investors (60%), and employees (20%). Corporate structureīyteDance, based in Beijing, and its subsidiary TikTok Ltd, based in both Singapore and Los Angeles, were incorporated in the Cayman Islands. TikTok has admitted to previously censoring content critical of the Chinese government.

Several governments have or are currently attempting to ban TikTok from either government or public use owing to national security concerns over alleged connections to the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese intelligence operations and disinformation campaigns. TikTok's popularity has resulted in the platform having an increasing cultural impact worldwide. Cloudflare ranked TikTok the most popular website of 2021, surpassing Google. Morning Consult named TikTok the third-fastest growing infotech brand of 2020, after Zoom and Peacock.

In October 2020, TikTok surpassed 2 billion mobile downloads worldwide. Since their launches, TikTok and Douyin have gained global popularity. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 3 seconds to 10 minutes.

TikTok, whose mainland Chinese counterpart is Douyin ( Chinese: 抖音 pinyin: Dǒuyīn: Shaking sound), is a short-form video hosting service owned by ByteDance.

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