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Ever since TikTok (formerly musical.ly) is launched in September 2016, every smartphone user must have at least once used the application. In case the application is not used by any smartphone user yet then he must be familiar with it. TikTok has taken the world by storm and its increasing popularity in Asia, Middle East, America is quite evident.

Here are 5 things which you should be knowing about TikTok:

Video-sharing network

Essentially, TikTok is a video sharing network in which the length of the video is no longer than 15 seconds. The application has gained tremendous popularity, particularly among the younger generation in all parts of the world. Through this application, a person can upload a video of up to 15 seconds besides adding music, effects and sound clips to their videos. Moreover, they can even lip-sing any popular dialogue from a movie or a TV show or even any viral clip which gets circulated on different social media platforms. In addition, the editing tools of TikTok like cutting, integrating, trimming and duplicating makes the application more interesting and usable.

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Formerly musical.ly, now TikTok

Before TikTok, the application was known as musical.ly which was just another product of ByteDance (same parent company). Musical.ly was launched in August 2014 while TikTok came into existence in September 2016. However, the latter gained a lot of popularity in no time and this is exactly why the parent company of both the platforms i.e. ByteDance, merged the two platforms into TikTok. As a result, all musical.ly users were moved automatically to TikTok including all their data.

Crossing the landmark of 1 billion downloads

Across Android and iOS, the Chinese app TikTok surpassed the 1 billion download mark last month. As a result, TikTok surpassed Instagram in terms of most downloaded non-game apps and is now behind only WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Facebook. In comparison, 663 million people downloaded TikTok in 2018 while Instagram roped in 444 million new downloads. In 2018, Facebook was downloaded by 711 million new devices.

TikTok in Pakistan

Just like any other South Asian country, TikTok has a massive fan base in Pakistan as well. The application is famous among the teens, celebrities and social media stars. Moreover, there are plenty of TikTok stars who have grown their fan base through mimicking the dialogues of famous celebrities. In 2018, the number of TikTok downloads (Android) in Pakistan were staggering 11.8 million and it was only behind India, USA, Turkey, Russia, Mexico and Brazil. The numbers reveal the gigantic acceptance of the application within the country.

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Downside of TikTok

With every pro, there are some cons. TikTok, in the case, is no such exception. The biggest disadvantage of TikTok is that the video-sharing platform has some negative influence on the teens. According to Reuters, in July 2018, Indonesia took a solid stance by banning the application in the country since it was promoting ‘pornography, inappropriate content and blasphemy’.  TikTok also had to face a lot of criticism in the U.S. since the application was accused of exposing young girls to plenty of indecent comments. The Madras High Court in India has also asked the central government to slap a ban on TikTok since it is ‘encouraging pornography’.