TikTok is one of the largest and fastest growing companies in the world. 

The app was invented by a 37-year-old Chinese man Zhang Yiming for the purpose of having a worldwide connection for entertainment, and was published in September of 2016 according to the New York Times. 

TikTok’s popularity has blown up since its launch back in 2016, because the rough estimation of total users currently in November of 2020 is around 800 million, the Aug. 3, 2020, story stated. 

What do users of the app think of TikTok today? 

Dimond Senior Leiohana Suaava said, “I feel TikTok is funny, but also a distraction at times. It gets in the way of my sleep schedule, and it feels like a stress reliever.” 

There are, however, concerns about privacy while using the app.

Suaava said, “No, I do not believe we have complete privacy, because I fear that because the company resides in China, they can be gathering information about each person who uses TikTok.”

TikTok was known to have a few issues with privacy being broken into, and was almost shut down in the United States by President Donald Trump. The dispute was settled once Oracle stepped up to become TikTok’s cloud provider, and with the help of Walmart buying a 7.5 percent stake, writes Zak Doffman in Forbes News.

Do you believe the app is appropriate for the ages TikTok has said it was intended for? 

Dimond Senior Tino Lia said, “Yes, and no because there are good creators on the app who are mindful of the different audiences that they could have, but then there are others whose content are more intended for older ages.” 

Lia does believe TikTok impacts younger viewers actions and thoughts. 

Lia said, “Definitely, because as kids usually do, they mimic those who they look up to, and soon repeat actions that the creator they watch would do.” 

While some users of TikTok today think that their privacy is not protected enough, others think that parental consent should be allowed to play part of whether or not a child should use this app. 

Leiohana said, “I do believe that parents should be involved with their child’s social media, especially TikTok because there are many inappropriate things that could be seen”

Although TikTok has great defense for videos that would be against the guidelines, it may not be soon enough to stop the child viewer from encountering the video first, causing a concern for many parents of children who own the app on their phones or other devices.

Another quick summary of what some users believe is that there should be a limit to how much you can watch on TikTok and that younger audience members should be recommended good creators to watch so they do not follow those who are more adult audience based. 

As of today there is no limit, and people have been losing sleep and getting addicted to keep watching.