TikTok is the world's fastest growing social media network, and if you are not under 25 there is a good chance you have never heard of it. The platform -- which uses algorithms to automatically curate an endless feed of entertaining, user-generated short videos -- is a smash hit with teenagers around the world, including in the U.S., India and to a lesser extent Japan.
But because of its parent company's relationship with the Chinese Communist Party -- like every other Chinese company, it is beholden to the party -- TikTok has the potential to be a powerful tool for the CCP to censor information and manipulate discourse outside China. A recent leak of TikTok's content regulation guidelines to the Guardian newspaper suggests that censorship is already happening.
