# ByteDance  ## Metadata - Author: [[britannica.com]] - Full Title: ByteDance - Category: #articles - Summary: ByteDance, founded in 2012, is a Chinese tech company best known for creating TikTok, a popular video-sharing app that has over 3.5 billion downloads. Despite its success, ByteDance faces scrutiny for alleged censorship and data privacy issues, leading to investigations and bans in several countries. The company's rapid growth has raised national security concerns, prompting actions from governments, including the U.S. and EU. - URL: https://www.britannica.com/money/ByteDance ## Highlights - ByteDance was founded in 2012 by a development team led by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo. The duo were college roommates at Nankai University in Tianjin and started ByteDance in their shared apartment. Their goal as developers was to capitalize on the growing mobile Internet market with apps that could enrich their users’ lives. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jyspzmdvssnq2ekn63x5n8fn)) - The first product the group produced was the app Neihan Duanzi (“profound gags”), which allowed users to share jokes and [memes](https://www.britannica.com/topic/meme). This was followed by the [news aggregator](https://www.britannica.com/topic/news-aggregator) app Toutiao, which used [machine and deep learning](https://www.britannica.com/technology/machine-learning) algorithms to deliver a personalized news feed to users. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq099cyc88p5gp165f86v4)) - Toutiao became an early flagship of ByteDance and continues to have more than 300 million monthly active users. The company also developed the Indian social media app Hello, as well as the popular Indonesian news aggregator Baca Berita (BaBe). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq0jn48vq68s9sxw8gkt6h)) - In 2016 ByteDance released the video-sharing app Douyin, exclusively for users in [China](https://www.britannica.com/place/China). The popularity of Douyin in China inspired the team to develop [TikTok](https://www.britannica.com/topic/TikTok) for international audiences. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq0shzctfbyc57fqcmgt2g)) - The app enjoyed early success with young [Internet](https://www.britannica.com/technology/Internet) users, and its user base grew substantially in 2017, when ByteDance acquired the popular video-sharing app Musical.ly, which it merged with TikTok in 2018. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq1kws58d39h8dyg6bnygt)) - In 2019 TikTok user Feroza Aziz’s account was suspended after she posted a video criticizing the Chinese government’s mass detention of [Uyghur Muslims](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Uyghur). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq3qw5z3fj58hmwwd8qp47)) - In 2022 [*Forbes*](https://www.britannica.com/place/Forbes-New-South-Wales) technology reporter Emily Baker-White claimed that she had been spied on and tracked by ByteDance after writing an article critical of TikTok. Company officials initially rebuffed these claims but later admitted that their employees had obtained data from American TikTok users, including journalists and those connected to them. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq4eaxxwqegvpqhkn5ve50)) - In 2023 the U.S. [Department of Justice](https://www.britannica.com/topic/US-Department-of-Justice) and the [Federal Bureau of Investigation](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Federal-Bureau-of-Investigation) (FBI) announced that they had begun an investigation in late 2022 into the claim against ByteDance. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq52r4z6jzsm29hdghx1nr)) - Hello and TikTok were banned in India, thereby removing millions of users from the apps’ reach. In addition, in November 2022 the [European Union](https://www.britannica.com/topic/European-Union) (EU) confirmed the existence of an ongoing investigation into TikTok’s data practices, including data transmissions to China. TikTok was banned on EU staff devices in 2023. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jysq62e9tqw5j7p5k0zrtz4y))