Snap has announced Snapchat Spotlight, a TikTok-like stream of content which the company says will feature ‘the most entertaining Snaps from the Snapchat community all in one place.’
To entice content creators to use the platform, Snap has announced a $1M fund which will be divided among those who post the most popular Snaps …
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A new update to the viral short-form video app TikTok this week brings support for iOS 14 home screen widgets. There are three different TikTok widgets from which you can choose, allowing quick access to trending videos and sounds from your home screen.
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A federal judge granted TikTok this Sunday a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration regarding the social network ban in the United States. As reported by the New York Times, TikTok would be banned this Monday, September 28, but now the app can remain available until a later date.
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Just as we thought the TikTok saga might finally be coming to an end, ByteDance has contradicted two claims made by Trump about the Oracle deal …
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TikTok has successfully skirted an App Store ban in the United States, with President Trump giving preliminary approval to a deal involving Walmart and Oracle late on Saturday evening. Meanwhile, a US judge issued a ruling early on Sunday morning to block the Commerce Department from forcing Apple and Google to remove WeChat from their respective app stores.
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Update: This has now been confirmed by the US Department of Commerce. See additional update at the bottom.
Two reports say that Trump will block downloads of TikTok and WeChat as of Sunday. The order is reportedly being signed this morning.
The move comes despite the planned partnership between TikTok owner ByteDance and US tech firm Oracle …
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When Donald Trump announced that he was banning TikTok unless it was sold to a US company, he made a bizarre claim that the US Treasury would get a substantial cut…
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The long-running saga of the TikTok sale may be finally coming to an end – without an actual sale.
Microsoft confirmed yesterday that it was out of the running, in a statement that made it clear this was not of the US company’s own choosing …
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With the TikTok US ban deadline around the corner, things are heating up as the Chinese government has reportedly taken the stance that it would rather see the app’s US operations shut down than sold to an American company.
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As the timer continues to count down to President Trump’s ban of TikTok in the US, the social media service’s owner, ByteDance has reportedly increased the urgency of talks with the Trump administration about avoiding the ban without having to sell all of its US operations.
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The TikTok saga continues today, as the Chinese government has changed its rules on tech exports in a way that could outlaw the proposed TikTok sale to a US company.
China previously had rules banning the export of certain categories of technology to foreign countries, and it has now added to these in a way which seems intended to include TikTok …
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Microsoft originally emerged as the front runner looking to acquire TikTok before the Trump administration ban goes into effect (now November). Other companies like Google and Apple were rumored to have shown interest as well but now in a surprising turn of events, Walmart has announced that it is working with Microsoft on the acquisition.
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Analysis of the TikTok app revealed references to Chinese servers in the code, which was subsequently removed in an update.
Two security researchers have given very different perspectives on whether or not this raises any privacy concerns …
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TikTok owner ByteDance, and an alliance representing WeChat users, are both taking legal action to challenge the Trump app bans. Trump signed executive orders banning both TikTik and WeChat from the US.
Both are arguing that the executive orders are illegal, each claiming the bans violate constitutional rights …
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A database breach has exposed profile data for nearly 235 million users of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
The data appears to have been collected by a practice known as web-scraping, where a company accesses the web interface of a service and then collates data automatically …
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President Trump has signed a new executive order that gives China’s ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off the US TikTok business. In the order, Trump says that there is “credible evidence” that ByteDance “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
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With TikTok potentially facing a US ban, depending on whether or not a Microsoft acquisition goes through, a Facebook short videos feature has been spotted in testing.
TikTok is of course based on short, user-created videos. As a highly popular app in the US, its withdrawal from the country would leave a huge vacuum …
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The drama around TikTok’s fate in the United States continues to evolve. A new report from The Wall Street Journal today says that Twitter has held “preliminary talks” with TikTok about a potential “combination.” Despite these talks, Microsoft is still said to be the “front-runner” to acquire the company.
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The Trump administration’s crackdown on Chinese apps was further escalated yesterday with an executive order banning transactions with Tencent and TikTok owner ByteDance. That hasn’t gone down well, as TikTok threatens a legal challenge to the order, saying that it is unlawful.
The company said it was ‘shocked’ by the order, which shows ‘no adherence to the law’ …
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Following this week’s announcement that TikTok and other Chinese apps like WeChat would be banned from the United States, Donald Trump today signed an executive order to officially ban transactions with Chinese companies ByteDance and Tencent.
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Microsoft recently shared its efforts to acquire TikTok’s U.S. business in a public blog post. Then, President Trump officially confirmed the TikTok ban in the U.S. by September 15 if an acquisition isn’t approved. Apple was reportedly in the mix too but that was refuted. Now Microsoft is said to be considering buying all of TikTok’s global operations.
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After Trump announced that TikTok would be banned from the US unless it was bought by an American company, the White House has now said it wants to ‘clean’ Chinese apps from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
Apps like WeChat had previously been referenced but not directly threatened by the White House, but the administration is now seeking to block this and other Chinese apps from the US as part of a 5-point plan …
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Instagram is out today with a major new release that should crank up the competition between social media apps to another level. “Reels” is rolling out for Instagram users in 50 countries and is focused on entertaining short-form video just like TikTok.
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While Microsoft has made its attempt to acquire TikTok publicly known, Apple is also reportedly interested in the deal. According to a new report Axios, Apple has expressed “serious interest” in acquiring the short-form video sharing service.
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