TikTok Newsroom

Really? Are those the elections to which even TikTok admitted there was an organized meddling? [0] > We proactively prevented more than 5.3 million fake likes and more than 2.6 million fake follow requests, and we blocked more than 116,000 spam accounts from being created in Romania. We also removed:59 accounts impersonating Romanian Government, Politician, or Political Party Accounts +59,000 fake accounts+1.5 million fake likes+1.3 million fake followers 0 - https://newsroom.tiktok.com/continuing-to-protect-the-integrity-of-tik…

TikTok's response: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-statement-in-response-to-univ… "It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters. Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent. TikTok has been able to reach 'artist-first' agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal's self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans."

TikTok is going to eat away at other platforms even more once they increase the fund, and it looks like they have plans to do just that: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/introducing-the-200-million-tiktok-c… Over 1 billion dollars in the US over the next three years. One common complaint from creators I watch on YouTube seems to be that the fund isn’t high enough for them to do TikTok full-time. So currently the flow is: Build an audience on TikTok, have that audience follow you to YouTube where ad revenue reigns supreme. One day that flow will just be to build an audience on TikTok.

> To that end, sometimes you may come across a video in your feed that doesn't appear to be relevant to your expressed interests or have amassed a huge number of likes. > By offering different videos from time to time, the system is also able to get a better sense of what's popular among a wider range of audiences to help provide other TikTok users a great experience, too. Our goal is to find balance between suggesting content that's relevant to you while also helping you find content and creators that encourage you to explore experiences you might not otherwise see. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/how-tiktok-recommends-videos-for-you

TikTok issued a press release explaining exactly how their recommendation algorithm works. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/how-tiktok-recommends-videos-for-you…

TikTok already released details of its recommendation algorithm [1] so it's out there in public domain and free accessible. I'm not a lawyer but some of this information that FTC is demanding are trade secrets of these companies and they are not willing to give them just like that. [1] https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/how-tiktok-recommends-videos-for-you…

> The attached doc suggests that they are only using unsupervised learning, which I find very hard to believe, to be honest. Where are you seeing that? I see: > Recommendations are based on a number of factors, including things like: > User interactions such as the videos you like or share, accounts you follow, comments you post, and content you create. > ... and > A strong indicator of interest, such as whether a user finishes watching a longer video from beginning to end... which indicates the opposite https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/how-tiktok-recommends-videos-for-you

See TikTok [1] as an example. The idea is to mix in different content. Making the goal not to match perfectly but to match different topics. - [1]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/how-tiktok-recommends-videos-for-you

I believe it. 1B daily users globally. Processed events per day probably somewhere in the trillions. In case you missed it, they recently shared some details on their algorithmic curation system ;) https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/how-tiktok-recommends-videos-for-you…

The court must not have looked very hard. "Let us be very clear: TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China. We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period. Our US moderation team, which is led out of California, reviews content for adherence to our US policies – just like other US companies in our space. We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government; TikTok does not operate in China, nor do we have any intention of doing so in the future." https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/statement-on-tiktoks-content-moderat… "58. Have members of the Chinese Communist Party, or other members of the Chinese government, asked ByteDance or TikTok employees to heat content? TikTok does not heat content in the U.S. at the request of any government, including the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok may promote or "heat" specific content (including, e.g., promoting the video of an artist who will be hosting a concert on TikTok Live) in line with company content policies to support the inclusion of diverse and high-quality content on the platform. A content operations team will review heating requests submitted by a limited number of cross-functional partners with access to the heating request, and the Content Operations team will either approve or reject the request based on their assessment of whether it follows the platform's best…

There are plenty of parallels with what happened with Snapchat Stories, but I do wonder if it's the "same thing". Stories are best when created by people you know, and they're easy to create too. They're the type of content that would build off of Instagram's social strengths. The type of content people consume on TikTok, as far as I understand, is largely made by creators though. This is similar to YouTube; they now even get financial compensation directly for it too [1] (although apparently this compensation is not as good as YouTube's). This could be a Snapchat vs Instagram Stories situation, or it could be a YouTube vs Facebook Watch / IGTV situation. Facebook has historically been notoriously bad at creating a high-quality video platform, so if that's what it takes to beat TikTok I honestly wouldn't expect Instagram Reels to overtake TikTok anytime soon, especially considering a lot of what I've seen there are random accounts reposting TikTok content (which feels a bit like the type of content Watch became infamous for). [1]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-creator-fund-your-questions-a…

Bytedance is incorporated in Caymen islands. Its not a Chinese owned corporation. It has subsidiary in HongKong, not mainland China. In fact, it does not have an legal entity in mainland China. Its has subsidiary in the U.S. that runs TikTok in California. The US subsidiary is managed by Americans and hires American workers. The CEO is Kevin Mayer. All TikTok's data is stored in the US, the content management and regulation team are all American employees. I know from TikTok employees that employees in Chinese office are not allowed to view U.S. stored data. The machine learning system for Tiktok and Chinese version douyin are separate. Tiktok is planning to allow outside security review of how they manage content and how the recommendation algorithm works. Legally, there is no way that Chinese laws have any jurisdiction on the U.S. subsidiary due to the fact that Bytedance is incorporated in Cayman islands. Bytedance's operations in China (Douyin and others) are managed by the Hongkong operating entity, and only these operations have to respect Chinese laws. If the Chinese government wants to get data from TikTok, the employees there can just deny them. What can the Chinese government do? Arrest them? They live in the US. Second, if Chinese government is forcing Tiktok to censor according to its own wishes, the American employees at Tiktok would have been talking by now. You think American employees would bend backwards for Chinese government? Source: ByteDance coporeate…

As of a few days ago, yes: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/announcement-from-the-new-tiktok-usds-join… Only TikTok in the U.S., though; everywhere else it's Bytedance still.

From the divestiture announcement, the answer appears to be yes to both: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/announcement-from-the-new-tiktok-usds-join…

TikTok post: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/announcement-from-the-new-tiktok-usds-join… (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46728036)

TikTok EU is based out of Ireland, so they'd have to move the whole datacentre. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-european-data-centre Meanwhile this is a very interesting read on their corporate structure: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/13247/default/ "On corporate structure specifically, there is a misconception that TikTok UK is a subsidiary of ByteDance's operations in China. This is not the case. TikTok UK is owned by global parent company ByteDance Ltd, incorporated in the Cayman Islands" .. now, everyone talks about China as a global enemy of freedom and accountability, but I think Grand Cayman is underestimated as a bad actor or protector thereof.

Some do care, e.g. some camera manufacturers or some news agencies. Surprisingly some social media platforms[1] want clear labels for AI generated content. [1]: e.g. tiktok https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/partnering-with-our-industry-to-adva…

Even the TikTok ban appears to have been led by the Israeli lobby and Israeli operatives because so much of the TikTok content re the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has leaned in favor of the Palestinians [0][1]. [0]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-truth-about-tiktok-hashtags-and-… [1]: https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1787134138283155963

They are working on a deal with US, all data for US citizens will be kept in US[1]. And some info about it from them directly: "As we recently shared with members of Congress, we are working toward a new system in which access to U.S. user data by anyone outside of USDS will be limited by, and subject to, robust data access protocols with monitoring and oversight mechanisms by Oracle."[2] 1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/tiktok-can-keep-operating-… 2. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/our-approach-to-keeping-us-data-secu… EDIT: downvotes for sharing latest additional data from official sources about the topic without any private opinions? This trend is dangerous for healthy discussion.

well apparently tiktok felt the need to respond today: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/delivering-on-our-us-data-governance

Also see: - Homepage: https://www.soundon.global/ - Press release: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/soundon-the-new-platform-for-tiktok-…

Yea, that makes sense. I'm wondering how it works with something like TikTok's Creator Fund [1] or Twitter Blue content creators (who might be compensated in the future), or even Medium. [1]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-creator-fund-your-questions-a…

> The VCs and record labels must be madly trying to get their investment back out of this. TikTok are suing the US Administration so they're not forced to sell their US operations [1]. From what I can see TikTok have only had a recent 3B funding round on Softbank (after becoming popular at 75B valuation) and could only find 1x 100M funding round for musical.ly (at 500M valuation). Considering the expected sale price for the US part of their business is circa 50B, even SoftBank are likely to get many times return on their investment. Early investors must be due for an insane return. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-au/tiktok-files-lawsuit

They've already done that. Currently there are a couple major data centers being in US/Singapore. US data is not permitted to go to china. The data currently is stored in a mix of US/singapore so can't claim solely US. The relevant blog post is here, https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/statement-on-tiktoks-content-moderat… I'd guess if US requested data to be solely US, that shift would probably be fine as currently singapore is mainly used as a backup and it'd be doable to have data centers in more distinct regions as currently US data is in just virginia. Also trump already announced he does not intend to permit microsoft acquiring tiktok to be enough to not ban them. I'm doubtful he'd have any chance winning a court case if tiktok did sell to microsoft, but sounds like he'll push on the ban regardless. Disclaimer: I work at mountain view tiktok.

I'm talking about this one: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/an-update-on-recent-content-and-acco… A different account operated by the same user was banned for something relating to an image of bin Laden in a different video. I've been unable to locate that video. I haven't found any reference stating that she praised him. She described her use of that image as satirical, and TikTok itself seems to recognize that (but stands by that ban): > *While we recognize that this video may have been intended as satire, our policies on this front are currently strict. In any case, the video in question is the Uighur one. TikTok quickly stated that one was a "human moderation error" and reversed it. My point is irrespective of whether their rules were morally correct or correctly applied, though--whatever those merits, they clearly drew more attention to the topic by censoring here, not less. So it's not surprising they don't apply blunt Chinese-style censorship outside China, since it's counterproductive without Chinese-style control of all major media.

Please people stop posting that "study" or at least read it before you take any conclusions from it. Good god it's terrible science. Like even if it's not obvious to you how using Instagram as a "reference" for hashtags is not a good baseline it still doesn't mean anything in terms of how the content is spread because how are you going to detect algorithmic boosting and suppression by counting user generated content? A million posts with #cheesetastesbad could get less actual views than ten posts with #pro-cheese. And this is before accounting for vastly different tagging culture between social networks and different users entirely. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-truth-about-tiktok-hashtags-and-… > Blunt comparisons of hashtags is severely flawed and misrepresentative of the activity on TikTok. > It’s critical to understand that hashtags on the platform are created and added to videos by content creators, not TikTok. Millions of people in regions such as the Middle East and South East Asia account for a significant proportion of views on hashtags. Therefore, there’s more content with #freepalestine and #standwithpalestine and more overall views. It is easy to cherry pick hashtags to support a false narrative about the platform. TikTok could be completely totally bold-faced evil and this study still wouldn't be good evidence of it.

The referenced letter by TikTok https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-truth-about-tiktok-hashtags-and-… contained this caveat: > In addition, the number of videos associated with a hashtag, alone, do not provide sufficient context. For example, the hashtag #standwithIsrael may be associated with fewer videos than #freePalestine, but it has 68% more views per video in the US, which means more people are seeing the content. And, some hashtags are newer (e.g. #standwithIsrael) while others are more established (e.g. #freePalestine)–the vast majority (9 in 10) of videos tagged #standwithIsrael were posted in the last 30 days in the US. A difference in views and posts is expected. I would assume that my 10 shitty videos (fyi they're actually very good, just unfairly withheld from viewers) would nonetheless show up in the "number of posts with this hashtag" provided by TikTok's ad manager portal, but I haven't tested this.

Quite a few ways, whether through device/session fingerprinting [1], in-app browser keystroke tracking [2], frequent third-party post requests [3], individiual app usage patterns [4], geo-tracking [5], dark-patterned user onboarding [6] and continual facial recognition [7]. A canary blog series kicked off by the company itself is worth keeping an eye on to see the 'myths' they want to debunk most scrupously (such as keytracking)[8]. [1]: https://www.nullpt.rs/reverse-engineering-tiktok-vm-1 [2]: https://krausefx.com/blog/announcing-inappbrowsercom-see-what-javascri… [3]: https://app.urlgeni.us/blog/new-research-across-200-ios-apps-hints-sur… [4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/business/media/tiktok-algorithm.htm… [5]: https://www.afr.com/technology/tiktok-admits-collecting-location-data-… [6]: https://au.reset.tech/uploads/resettechaustralia_policymemo_tiktok_fin… [7]: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/971460327/tiktok-to-pay-92-million-to-s… [8]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-truths-a-new-series-on-our-pr…

> So TikTok not only DID admit to have foreign access to US data, but also lied and denied previously about it then according to the leak in the Buzzfeed New article. They never claimed their own employees didn't have access to the data. They claimed that access to the data was controlled and it was stored in data centres not subject to China's jurisdiction[0]: > First, let's talk about data privacy and security. We store all TikTok US user data in the United States, with backup redundancy in Singapore. Our data centers are located entirely outside of China, and none of our data is subject to Chinese law. Further, we have a dedicated technical team focused on adhering to robust cybersecurity policies, and data privacy and security practices. Furthermore, the Buzzfeed article acknowledges that the "foreign access" was typically in the service of restricting that access: > In the recordings, the vast majority of situations where China-based staff accessed US user data were in service of Project Texas's aim to halt this data access. The actions of TikTok don't appear to be that of a bad faith actor. They responded to concerns about data privacy by moving customer data from their own data centres to those of an American cloud provider and have shown that they're working to restrict access to that data further. > This only proves that TikTok should deservedly get a billion dollar fine from the regulators as I said before, rather than trying to evade responsibility and join…

Google (top site for internet traffic) is defaulting to Passkeys: https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/passkeys-default-google… Amazon: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-passwordless-sign-in-pa… Uber: https://help.uber.com/riders/article/using-passkeys-to-sign-in?nodeId=… Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/help/account/signing-account/signing-account?id=4… Github: https://github.blog/2023-09-21-passkeys-are-generally-available/ Link by Stripe: https://app.link.com/ Docusign: https://www.docusign.com/blog/docusign-customers-can-upgrade-passwords… Tiktok: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/passkeys-fido-alliance