All ByteDance Apps Operate in the USA
The future of TikTok in the US is completely in doubt . If the US government gets its way, the app will be banned starting Sunday , although there may be ways to use it . The Supreme Court could step in to save it, as Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey did or even new President Donald Trump did. The only thing that is absolutely certain is that Congress, along with the Biden administration, wanted TikTok to be sold to an American company or out of American hands.
The fact is that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, owns and operates other apps in the US. None of these apps are currently in negotiations for a ban, but in theory they should all pose the same problems that forced the government to do so. after TikTok. ByteDance is based in China and, as such, will be beholden to the Chinese government if it requests the data of any American users.
In fact, the law that puts TikTok on track to be banned on Sunday makes it clear that no ByteDance app is safe. At the top of the law , it states that the purpose of the law is to “protect the national security of the United States from threats posed by applications controlled by foreign attackers, such as TikTok and any subsequent applications or services, and any other applications or services developed ” or provided by ByteDance Ltd. or an entity controlled by ByteDance Ltd.”
Below are all the apps I could find for ByteDance and its subsidiaries currently operating in the US. So it’s entirely possible that each of them faces a future ban, at least under current law, although some are likely less of a target than others.
Tik Tok
This is an important point: ByteDance, of course, owns TikTok, the app at the center of all this national security drama. You may be addicted to the app yourself.
What you may not know, however, is that the TikTok we know began neither as a ByteDance property nor as “TikTok” itself; rather, the app was originally called Musical.ly and was designed to allow users to post short videos lip-syncing to popular songs. It amassed a large following, which caught the attention of ByteDance as the company planned to expand its short-form social media app Douyin globally. ByteDance went international with a new version of Douyin, TikTok, in 2017 and almost immediately after acquired Musical.ly for almost $1 billion .
The rest, of course, is history. TikTok has become a worldwide phenomenon, attracting the attention of one billion users. 170 million of those users are in the US, which makes one wonder how the app’s looming ban will affect TikTok’s bottom line.
TikTok Light
If you have an Android device, you may have seen TikTok Lite before. This application is TikTok, only a lighter and more optimized version. Like other “lite” apps, this one is designed for phones with limited RAM, limited data, or unstable connections.
TikTok Lite is not that popular, especially compared to TikTok itself. It has only 100,000 downloads compared to TikTok’s more than one billion downloads. This is left out of the ban discussion, but if I had to guess, I would say ByteDance will cut off service for TikTok Lite in addition to the main TikTok app.
TikTok Studio and TikTok Store Seller
TikTok Studio is not made for consumers. Rather, it is an app for TikTok creators to manage posts on their accounts. Similarly, there is TikTok Shop Seller Center , an app for users who sell products on TikTok to manage their digital stores.
These apps are probably convenient for these users now, but who will want to use them if TikTok itself is no longer around?
CapCut
In the past, if you wanted to get into video production, you had to spend a lot of money: you needed a camera, a computer, and editing software, all of which weren’t cheap, and most of which required significant investment. technical know-how. Today, anyone with a smartphone can shoot video. Many of us interested in this turned to CapCut, which was owned by none other than ByteDance.
To say CapCut is popular is an understatement. The app has been downloaded over a billion times on Android alone , and is also available on iOS, Mac, Windows, and even the web. Like other video editors, CapCut offers tools for cutting your clips into content for sharing on social media, but there are also a number of additional features. This includes templates to launch part of your video, video effects, AI features, music integration, stock videos and more.
Apart from all these features, the reason CapCut is so popular probably has as much (if not more) to do with the fact that it is owned by the same parent company as TikTok. This means a few things: CapCut offers a simple workflow from editing to posting to TikTok; TikTokers themselves use the application and promote it; and ByteDance can advertise CapCut on TikTok as much as it wants.
Highpeak
On the other side of the editing aisle is Hypic , ByteDance’s photo editing tool. This app isn’t as big as CapCut, but it’s still pretty big (over 10 million downloads on the Play Store). The app offers standard photo editing tools, plus other benefits: AI-powered tools like cropping, background removal, and filters; a function that allows you to add “trend” makeup to images; and other options such as stickers and templates.
Lemon8
Users are flocking to other Chinese social media apps in protest against a potential government ban on TikTok. One such app is Lemon8 , a social “lifestyle” platform. Like TikTok, Lemon8 also supports video sharing, but that’s not its only purpose. Users can also post images, including in carousels, making it similar to Instagram. Plus, you can work with multiple types of content at the same time, just like Pinterest. As Jessica Maddox, assistant professor of digital media technology, told NBC News , “If these three apps got together and had a baby, it would be Lemon8.”
Marvel Snap
Marvel Snap is a popular mobile card game featuring characters from the Marvel universe. Players draw decks of 12 cards and play for control of three locations. The player who controls at least two locations after six moves wins. While Marvel itself may be an American property, the game is run by Nuverse, a subsidiary of ByteDance, potentially putting it in the crosshairs of the US government.
Land of Empires
Land of Empires is another game owned by Nuverse. This game is a strategy game where you have to fight against the enemy army of demons. Like other strategy games, you fortify your lands, fight enemies in battle, and fight in major battles. It’s not as popular as Marvel Snap , but it’s also not as niche, with over a million downloads on the Play Store.
Lark
Chances are you’ve never heard of Lark. (I certainly don’t.) Lark offers a collection of business apps and services. Lark’s standalone app for iOS and Android is described as a “team collaboration” app, which essentially means it’s essentially a competitor to Microsoft Teams or Slack. Lark has features such as in-app messaging and video calling, as well as document sharing.
It’s probably not something you’ll ever use yourself, but rather a service you use through your company. However, if government scrutiny of ByteDance increases, your company may need to consider alternatives.
Tokopedia and Tokopedia START
Tokopedia is a shopping service based in Indonesia, but it has apps available for users in the United States. The company also offers Tokopedia START , an app that appears to have been created for the 2022 technology conference. Tokopedia, as you may have guessed, is a subsidiary of ByteDance.