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TIKTOK: A CHINESE-OWNED SOCIAL MEDIA APP SPECIALISING IN SHORT VIDEO CLIPS

TikTok is a Chinese social media app where users can live stream, create short videos and music videos and Gifs with a host of functions. 

TikTok's tagline is 'Make every second count'.

It was the most downloaded app in the US in 2018 and the world's fourth most downloaded app in 2018, ahead of Instagram and Snapchat.

TikTok is known in China as Douyin where it was launched in 2016 and then made more widely available around the world in 2017.  

Douyin is still the version of the app used in China, available to download separately to TikTok.  

It offers users a raft of colourful modification and editing tools including overlaying music, sound, animated stickers, filters and augmented reality (AR) for creating short videos. 

The Beijing based social network has more than 500 million active users and the company is now worth more than $75 billion (£58 billion). 

In 2020 Donald Trump called for the US arm of TikTok to be sold to an American company over fears the China-owned app posed a national security risk. 

Talks are under way between ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart over US operations after Trump threatened a download ban in the US. 

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