Video-sharing social networking service TikTok took the internet by storm, giving users a platform to showcase their creativity through a 15 second short video.
Surpassing popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat & YouTube, the app became the most downloaded app in the US, back in September, 2018.
And then spread like wildfire, the rumors about TikTok breathing its last and shutting down on October 26 (2018). Soon as the matter caught heat, the app’s official Twitter handle announced they were not bidding adieu and outrightly rejected the rumors.
TikTok’s popularity story didn’t end there. Recently, a report by App Annie ranked TikTok at the seventh spot among the 10 most-downloaded apps of the decade including names like Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Skype and others.
Cut to now. A few weeks later, user queries about whether TikTok is shutting down in 2020 have once again begun to surface. But why now all of a sudden? After all, there ain’t any smoke without fire.
US Army has banned TikTok
A few weeks back, it came to light that the US Navy has banned TikTok from the government-issued mobile devices, calling it a cybersecurity threat. After an investigation by the US intelligence officials, last month (Dec, 2019), the army initially advised soldiers not to use the app, following which they prohibited the same.
As per reports, army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Robin Ochoa shared the app is “is considered a cyber threat” and won’t be allowed “on government phones.” Meaning, using the app on personal phones shouldn’t be a problem for the army personnel.
Coincidentally, ever since the news about the app’s ban by the US army came to light, queries about ‘Tik Tok shutting down for real’ began to populate. But as far as we can see, there’s no official confirmation about the app’s closure as yet.
The official channels or social media handles of the app haven’t yet spoken about or addressed the newest shutdown rumors like the way they addressed them back in 2018. Considering the app’s popularity, we doubt it’s going away anytime soon.
Until TikTok officially confirms the closure rumors, it’s safe to assume that the popular Chinese social media app ain’t going anywhere. Rest assured, we’ll be keeping a tab on all the official sources to share with you the official statement, if at all there comes any. Till then, happy TikToking!
Update 1 (Jan 08)
It’s worth noting that apart from reports about TikTok’s ban by the US army, some other stuff has also been going on. During the same time reports about ByteDance considering selling the app.
However, a ByteDance spokesperson outrightly rejected the rumors saying that “these rumors are completely meritless” and there have “been no discussions about any partial or full sale of TikTok.”
It could be that while supressing the cybersecurity concerns of the app, ByteDance might be silently working on another plan by weighing the app’s stake sale. But what exacty is going behind the scenes, there’s yet to come clarity about it.
Anyway, to wrap up on a happy note, it’s good to see that TikTok’s chinese kin Douyin now has 400 million daily active users.
Update 2 (April 01)
It appears that Tik Tok is down for many in the US and other regions. Apart from user reports on Twitter regarding videos taken down or disappearsed, Down detector also conveys the service is encountering an outage. Take a look at what some users have to say:
Why did #TikTok take down everyone’s videos besides the ones with millions of views hmmm Thinking face
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Tiktok is either down, or pullin’ a terrible April Fool’s. My tiktoks wont post, and no one can see my stuff Flushed face#tiktokdown
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#tiktok is down and every video I post isn’t being shown to people / when I send it to friends, it shows them that “the video was taken down” this is TOM FOOLERY.
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Update 3 (July 07)
Following a skirmish with the Chinese army at border, India recently banned Tik Tok and 58 other apps (the list includes several other major Chinese titles as well). And now, news reports are pouring in that the US could be next in line to ban TikTok.
There were also reports that the Bytedance-owned app could face the same fate in Australia as well, but the company has denied it for now.