Page 8 - Tiktok

Homegrown TikTok Alternative Chingari announces 20% cuts in workforce

20 per cent of employees at Chingari short video app will be affected by new layoffs. The move is expected to start an "organisational rebuilding for improved effectiveness"

TikTok plans to fuel e-commerce business with billions in investment

TikTok is planning to pour billions of dollars in Southeast Asia over the next few years, aiming to drive growth in one of its biggest markets amid heightened scrutiny in the US. The company's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, made the announcement on Thursday during a speech at a TikTok forum in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. The investment comes as the app's e-commerce marketplace, TikTok Shop, is experiencing some growth following its expansion to more countries in the region last year. But its still trailing more established power players, like online shopping sites Shopee and Lazada. The popular video-sharing app, though, is attempting to harness the power of its user base. Chew said on Thursday that the app generates more than 325 million visitors in Southeast Asia each month. And the research group Insider Intelligence expects its user base in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines to increase by more than 10 per cent this year. TikTok did not provide a detailed break

TikTok CEO asked to explain statements about how company manages US data

Two U.S. senators are asking TikTok to explain what they called misleading or inaccurate responses about how it stores and provides access to U.S. user data after recent news reports raised questions about how the Chinese-owned social media platform handles some sensitive information. In a letter sent Tuesday to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn cited a report from Forbes that said TikTok had stored financial information of U.S. content creators who get paid by the company including their Social Security numbers and tax IDs - on China-based servers. The senators also cited another report from The New York Times, published in late May, that said TikTok employees regularly shared user information, such as driver's licenses information of some American users, on an internal messaging app called Lark that employees from TikTok's Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, could easily access. Forbes first reported Wednesday on the letter. TikTok

Meta sells Giphy to Shutterstock to comply with UK regulator order

The company said Giphy would add minimal revenue this year and it would launch efforts to increase revenue from 2024

TikTok files suit to stop 'unconstitutional' ban in US State of Montana

Social media company TikTok Inc filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to overturn Montana's first-in-the-nation ban on the video sharing app, arguing the law is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights and is based on unfounded speculation that the Chinese government could access users' data. The lawsuit by TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, follows one filed last week by five content creators. They made similar arguments including that the state of Montana has no authority to take action on matters of national security. Both lawsuits were filed in federal court in Missoula. Republican Gov Greg Gianforte signed the bill Wednesday and the content creators' lawsuit was filed hours later. The law is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, but cybersecurity experts say it could be difficult to enforce. TikTok says it has not shared and would not share US user data with the Chinese government and has taken measures to protect the privacy and security of its users, including

Montana becomes first US state to ban TikTok, to face legal challenges

Under the legislation, TikTok and app stores, like those operated by Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, could face fines of as much as $10,000 for violations

Musk marks TikTok as 'extremely destructive' after finding ill effects

Billionaire Elon Musk has expressed his concern over the ill effects of the social media platform 'TikTok' on certain age groups

Beijing had access to app data: Fired ByteDance executive in law suit

A former executive fired from TikTok's parent company ByteDance made a raft of accusations against the tech giant Friday, including that it stole content from competitors like Instagram and Snapchat, and served as a "propaganda tool" for the Chinese government by suppressing or promoting content favourable to the country's interests. The allegations were made in a complaint Friday by Yintao Yu, the head of engineering for ByteDance's US operations from August 2017 to November 2018, as part of a wrongful termination lawsuit filed earlier this month in San Francisco Superior Court. Yu claims he was fired for disclosing "wrongful conduct" he saw at the company. In the complaint, Yu alleges the Chinese government monitored ByteDance's work from within its Beijing headquarters and provided guidance on advancing "core communist values." Yu said government officials had the ability to turn off the Chinese version of ByteDance's apps, and maintained access to all company data, including ...

Scammers on music apps Spotify, Apple Music siphon billions from artists

Currently, much of the music industry is preoccupied with the newest threat - or maybe opportunity - to emerge from Silicon Valley

Meta tests views-based creator payments to compete with rival TikTok

Meta forecasts it can close that monetization gap by the end of this year or early next year

TikTok's revamped creator fund to require 10K followers, 100K views

Chinese short-form video platform TikTok has opened its revamped creator fund, called the Creativity Programme Beta, to all eligible creators in the US from May 3

UK fined TikTok nearly $16 mn for misusing children's personal data

"TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better," UK Information Commissioner said

TikTok fined $15.9 million by UK watchdog over misuse of kids' data

Britain's privacy watchdog hit TikTok with a multimillion-dollar penalty on Tuesday for a slew of data protection breaches, including misusing children's data. The Information Commissioner's Office said it issued a fine of 12.7 million pounds (USD 15.9 million) to the short-video sharing app, which is wildly popular with young people. It's the latest example of tighter scrutiny that TikTok and its parent, Chinese technology company ByteDance, are facing in the West, where governments are increasingly concerned about risks that the app poses to data privacy and cybersecurity. The British watchdog said TikTok allowed as many as 1.4 million children in the UK under 13 to use the app in 2020, despite the platform's own rules prohibiting children that young from setting up accounts. TikTok didn't adequately identify and remove children under 13 from the platform, the watchdog said. And even though it knew younger children were using its platform, TikTok failed to get consent from their

Australia to ban TikTok on government devices amid security concerns

Australia's federal government will ban video-sharing application TikTok on govt devices over fears that the application's security could be compromised

ByteDance surges 30% to match Tencent's $80 bn sales after TikTok boom

That pace of expansion underscores the resilience of ByteDance's business at a time Washington is threatening to join India in banning TikTok

How this little-known US agency holds power over future of TikTok

Under pressure from the US government, TikTok is now facing the music with the possibility of a nationwide ban if it defies a government order to sell to an American company unless the popular social media app can convince a high-powered panel that its data security restructuring plan sufficiently guards against national security concerns. At the heart of this social media business and national security drama is the increasingly tense relations between the US and China. The video-sharing platform with 150 million US users is best known for quick snippets of viral dance routines and has been under scrutiny for years by federal authorities who say that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, could share sensitive user data with the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf. Having already banned the shipment of certain technologies to China, and recently passing new legislation banning the app on government devices, lawmakers want to pursue a nationwide b

What is Lemon8 and how it linked with under-fire short video app TikTok

Lemon8: Marketing itself as a 'content sharing platform with a youthful community', the app lets users make longer blog-like posts about topics such as fashion, fitness, travel and cooking

Huge win for Russia as TikTok propaganda labels on agencies fall flat

A year ago, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, TikTok started labelling accounts operated by Russian state propaganda agencies as a way to tell users they were being exposed to Kremlin disinformation. An analysis a year later shows the policy has been applied inconsistently. It ignores dozens of accounts with millions of followers. Even when used, labels have little impact on Russia's ability to exploit TikTok's powerful algorithms as part of its effort to shape public opinion about the war. Researchers at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan, transatlantic nonprofit operated by the German Marshall Fund that studies authoritarian disinformation, identified nearly 80 TikTok accounts operated by Russian state outlets like RT or Sputnik, or by individuals linked to them, including RT's editor-in-chief. More than a third of the accounts were unlabelled, despite a labelling policy announced by TikTok a year ago. The labels, which appear in bold immediately below an ...

US: TikTok ban pushed by Missouri's Josh Hawley blocked in Senate

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley tried to force a Senate vote Wednesday on legislation that would ban TikTok from operating in the United States, but he was blocked by a fellow Republican as lawmakers in both chambers are still trying to figure out what action, if any, is appropriate against the social media app. In trying to force a vote a move that rarely works in the Senate, since one senator's objection can block it Hawley called TikTok digital fentanyl and argued it could give the Chinese government access to data from 150 million American users. His bill would block and prohibit U.S. transactions with TikTok's parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., within 30 days. The bill sends the message to Communist China that you cannot buy us, Hawley said. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky objected to Hawley's motion, arguing that trying to ban an app would violate the Constitution and anger the millions of voters who use it. Speech is protected whether you like it or not, Paul ..

Will move forward with bill to block TikTok: US House Speaker McCarthy

Taking to his official Twitter handle, McCarthy called it "very concerning" that the TikTok CEO can't be honest and admit that China has access to TikTok