TikTok started as a fun app for teenagers but has now become a major topic of national security debates in the United States. With over 1.5 billion active users worldwide as of 2025, TikTok is one of the biggest social media platforms. However, concerns over data privacy and foreign influence have led to legal battles and government action.
TikTok’s journey began in 2012 when Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming founded ByteDance. Initially, the company focused on a news aggregation app called Toutiao, but in 2016, it launched Douyin, a short-video platform for the Chinese market. To expand globally, ByteDance introduced TikTok in September 2017.
The actual breakthrough was in November 2017, when ByteDance purchased Musical.ly for $1 billion. Musical.ly was already well-liked in the U.S., particularly among teenagers, so combining it with TikTok enabled ByteDance to establish a huge American user base in a matter of months. By 2020, TikTok had been downloaded more than 2 billion times globally.
TikTok's recommendation algorithm, which provided videos to the users based on their preferences, made the application extremely addictive. As of 2025, TikTok already had more than 200 million users in the U.S. alone. TikTok gained fame due to its viral trends, dance challenges, and memes going viral across the web. As of 2021, TikTok became the topmost downloaded app worldwide, overtaking even Facebook and Instagram.
According to a 2022 Pew Research analysis, 67% of American teens used TikTok regularly, with 16% reporting that they were on the app almost constantly. By 2024, TikTok had earned $14.3 billion in ad revenue, making it a serious challenger to Meta and YouTube.
In addition to its popularity, TikTok's linkage to China put US authorities on edge. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has its headquarters in China, where there are severe cybersecurity regulations mandating businesses to provide data to the government when asked. This led to fears that American users' information could be shared with the Chinese government.
In 2022, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said that Chinese-linked TikTok accounts had tried to sway the US midterm elections by promoting specific political narratives. The fear was that the app might be used for spreading disinformation or swaying public opinion.
The U.S. military prohibited TikTok from government devices in 2020.
In 2023, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) referred to TikTok as a national security threat.
Over 30 American states banned TikTok on official government devices.
In response to security concerns, the US government enacted the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The legislation demanded that TikTok sell its American business to a US company or get banned across the country.
Likely Buyers: Oracle, Microsoft, and investors like General Atlantic and KKR showed interest in purchasing TikTok's American operations.
Donald Trump, had earlier advocated for a similar prohibition in 2020, but it was halted by lawsuits. This time around, the administration of President Donald Trump proceeded with imposing the restrictions, with TikTok getting one last opportunity to decouple from ByteDance.
TikTok and ByteDance sued, claiming the law infringed First Amendment rights and that security concerns were overblown. But in January 2025, the US Supreme Court upheld the law unanimously, holding that the dangers of foreign influence merited the restrictions.
The ruling implied that if ByteDance did not sell TikTok to an American firm, it would be excluded from the US market altogether.
As of 2025, the future of TikTok in the US is unclear. If it is purchased by an American company, the app may go on as normal under new management. Otherwise, TikTok may be banned outright in the US, impacting its 200 million American users and billions of dollars in ad revenue.
TikTok's story illustrates how social media is no longer merely entertainment—now it's also politics, security, and world power. Whatever comes next, the result will probably influence how governments treat foreign-owned tech in the future.