TikToks success has made it a big target for regulators

I.

A recurring theme of this newsletter is that I write about TikTok, make some dark prediction about its future, and then turn out to be totally wrong. In that spirit, I thought today we could look at the particularly newsy week the ByteDance-owned video app has had, and then contribute some additional speculation that I will later have to disown or apologize for.

Yesterday we talked about the audio-only social network Clubhouse, which found itself at the center of controversy after failing to take action or even make a public comment after users began to experience harassment within the app. Clubhouse took the same approach to trust and safety issues as most embryonic American social networks: do the bare minimum, and address any...

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