This picture taken on May 29, 2020 shows French internet influencers Marie-Victoire Tiangue @mv.tiangue (L), Louise Ragot @louisergt (C) and Théo Bignonneau @theobignonneau creating content on the video platform Tik Tok at the @thefrenchhouseparis, a collab house (also known as content house) in Paris.
Philippe Lopez—AFP/Getty Images

More than 1 billion people now use TikTok for bite-size entertainment and more, making it the biggest existing threat to the longtime titans of the social media world. TikTok eclipsed YouTube’s average U.S. watch time last year, and it had more U.S. downloads during the first half of 2021 than rivals Instagram and Snapchat. Responding to criticism, TikTok in the past year developed an incubator for Black creators, announced additional teen safety features, and launched SoundOn, a service to help music creators monetize their labor. Recently, it has become a source of unfiltered—and often inaccurate—news about Ukraine. Its next challenge: wartime content moderation.

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Write to Raisa Bruner at raisa.bruner@time.com.

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