From a Washington Post story by Hamza Shaban and Jonathan Baran headlined “How TikTok went from teen sensation to political pariah”:
In the seven years since TikTok was born as a niche lip-syncing app for Chinese teens, the platform has reshaped the media landscape — forcing U.S. tech giants to reckon with a foreign rival. The short-form video platform has amassed startling economic power, with more than a billion users and revenue expected to surpass YouTube’s, at nearly $25 billion by 2025.
Critics argue that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, makes the app a national security threat, potentially allowing it to share data about its American users or steer its algorithms at Beijing’s behest. This concern has spiraled into a slew of political action: A former president tried to ban the platform, and more than two dozen states have barred the app from government-owned devices — a panic that some describe as a threat to free speech in America.
The debate over TikTok is a stand-in for a host of political discontents. Here’s how TikTok went from a teen sensation to Washington’s boogeyman:
September 2016
In China, ByteDance launches the lip-syncing social media app Douyin, the predecessor of what would become TikTok.
September 2017
ByteDance rebrands Douyin into TikTok, targeting young people around the world.
November 2017
ByteDance acquires Musical.ly, the popular lip-syncing app with an established following that inspired Douyin’s creation.
July 2018
Indonesia temporarily bans TikTok, citing concerns of “pornography, inappropriate content and blasphemy.” The ban was lifted less than a week later after the app agreed to censor some of its content.August 2018
August 2018
Musical.ly, with its 100 million active users, and TikTok merge into one video app, triggering massive growth.
October 2018
Worldwide monthly installs of TikTok surpass both Facebook and Instagram for the first time, according to Sensor Tower data, emphasizing the app’s power in an industry long dominated by American companies.
February 2019
TikTok crosses 1 billion downloads globally on the App Store and Google Play.
The Federal Trade Commission fines Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, $5.7 million over allegations that it collected children’s data, in violation of federal law. The FTC claims the company didn’t notify parents about the app’s collection of personal information from users under 13. The company had received thousands of complaints from parents of young Musical.ly users.
November 2019
The U.S. government investigates TikTok over national security concerns, reviewing the 2017 deal in which Beijing-based ByteDance bought Musical.ly for up to $1 billion.
December 2019
The U.S. Army bans TikTok on military devices, following a Pentagon missive urging employees to uninstall the app. The Pentagon generally avoids weighing in on individual social media companies, and the move reflects burgeoning concerns about the app.
April 2020
TikTok reaches a total of more than 2 billion downloads on the App Store and Google Play, generating the most downloads for any app in a single quarter.May 2020
May 2020
TikTok hires Disney executive Kevin Mayer as its new CEO, which is seen as an effort to win over American officials skeptical of TikTok’s Chinese roots and to grow the company’s entertainment prospects.
June 2020
TikTokers and K-pop fans claim they sabotaged President Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally registrations by reserving free tickets but having no intention of showing up.
July 2020
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States is considering banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, citing security and privacy concerns and setting off the Trump administration’s campaign against the app.
Trump says he plans to bar TikTok from operating in the United States because of national security concerns.
August 2020
Facebook launches Reels, a copycat feature in Instagram designed to compete with TikTok. The release illustrates TikTok’s dominance within younger audiences, as legacy social media companies scramble to replicate its success.
The U.S. Senate approves a bill banning federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices, and Trump signs an executive order to effectively ban the use of TikTok in the United States.
May 2020
TikTok hires Disney executive Kevin Mayer as its new CEO, which is seen as an effort to win over American officials skeptical of TikTok’s Chinese roots and to grow the company’s entertainment prospects.
June 2020
TikTokers and K-pop fans claim they sabotaged President Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally registrations by reserving free tickets but having no intention of showing up.
July 2020
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States is considering banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, citing security and privacy concerns and setting off the Trump administration’s campaign against the app.
Trump says he plans to bar TikTok from operating in the United States because of national security concerns.
August 2020
Facebook launches Reels, a copycat feature in Instagram designed to compete with TikTok. The release illustrates TikTok’s dominance within younger audiences, as legacy social media companies scramble to replicate its success.
The U.S. Senate approves a bill banning federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices, and Trump signs an executive order to effectively ban the use of TikTok in the United States.
TikTok sues the Trump administration over its efforts to ban the app.
Amid the Trump administration’s impending ban, Mayer resigns after three months as TikTok’s CEO.
After Trump says TikTok can continue to operate domestically with American ownership, Walmart and Microsoft join forces in a bid to acquire the app’s U.S. operations.
September 2020
A federal judge temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s ban on TikTok.
December 2020
A second federal judge halts Trump’s TikTok ban, finding that the administration probably overstepped its authority and, by using presidential emergency powers, “acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner by failing to consider obvious alternatives.”
June 2021
President Biden revokes Trump’s TikTok ban but sets up a security review of foreign-owned apps.
March 2022
The White House briefs TikTok stars about the war in Ukraine, highlighting the app’s ascendant power as a news platform and a key tool in the Biden administration’s efforts to reach young people.
October 2022
Biden meets with TikTok creators ahead of the midterm elections.
November 2022
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) call for national ban on TikTok in a Washington Post op-ed, warning of TikTok’s supposed threat.
South Dakota bans TikTok from state-owned devices, sparking a wave of state bans.
December 2022
The Senate passes a bill to ban federal employees from using TikTok on government devices.
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, fires four employees after an internal investigation found that they had accessed data on two journalists and other U.S. users while attempting to track down a company leak.
January 2023
TikTok becomes the most-downloaded app in 2022, with about 730 million worldwide installations for the year, compared to Instagram’s 701 million and Facebook’s 641 million.
Over a frenzied five-week stretch, nearly two dozen state governors and officials restrict TikTok in their states, dialing up the dim political sentiment against the app.
The University of Wisconsin joins several universities in banning TikTok on system devices. Students quickly figure out loopholes, using their phones’ data plans rather than school WiFi to access the video app.
February 2023
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew launches an aggressive push in Washington to prove that the Chinese-owned app is not a national security threat. The diplomatic offensive ends months of silence, a strategy shift for TikTok.
The White House gives government agencies 30 days to ensure that they do not have TikTok on federal devices.
March 2023
The Biden administration pushes a plan that would require TikTok’s Chinese owners to divest from the popular app, in an escalation of the White House’s efforts to address national security concerns.
Hamza Shaban is a visual enterprise reporter for the Business Desk. He joined The Washington Post in 2017 as a technology reporter. Previously, he covered tech policy for BuzzFeed News.
Jonathan Baran is a video reporter on the Financial Desk at The Washington Post’s San Francisco bureau covering technology, business and culture.
