Why Vine died
Oct 28, 2016
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-twitter-shutdown
What Is TikTok And Where Did It Come From?
7 January 2019
https://junkee.com/tiktok-app-vine-challenge/188567
The idea behind TikTok is pretty simple: it’s a platform for sharing short videos, just like Vine. Videos on TikTok can be up to 15 seconds long, there are different songs and filters you can apply to them, and you can create collaborative split-screen videos by replying to someone else’s post.
As for where it came from, the short answer is China (where TikTok is known as Douyin). TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech company that owns quite a few popular apps and platforms in China. While you may not have heard of it, it’s actually one of the most valuable startups in the world, worth around $75 billion as of October 2018.
Should I Sign Up To TikTok?
We’ve covered what TikTok is, and the kinds of content going wild on it. As for whether you should sign up, that’s your choice, but it’s worth flagging that you should make sure to actually read the service’s privacy policy before deciding.
That’s because right now, the amount of information TikTok says it collects about its users is pretty extensive, and it’s very vague about who it gives that information to (for instance, the app collects “information contained in the messages you send through our Platform”, not just the times and dates the messages were sent, and it shares information it collects with “business partners, advertisers, analytics and search engine providers”, amongst others). TikTok’s not alone in doing this — lots of social media services are collecting and selling a lot of information about you — but it’s worth noting that TikTok’s collection of personal information is on the more extensive end of things.