TikTok is the fastest growing app in the world, and the first to challenge the Silicon Valley hegemony. It's made an enemy in Donald Trump, and is the app a generation chooses to use to express itself.
But how has TikTok taken over the world in just a few short years, and what does its success mean for the future of technology?
Journalist and author of YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars, Chris Stokel-Walker tells the inside story of TikTok's success for the first time in this new book: TikTok Boom: China, the US and the Superpower Battle for Social Media.
Over the course of several years, he has interviewed scores of people connected to the world's hottest app, including current and former employees, as well as some of TikTok's biggest names in front of and behind the lens, gleaning never-before-seen insights as to how the new influencer ecosystem works. And as talks of a ban become more widespread, Stokel-Walker plots its potential downfall as the weight of geopolitics looms over the platform and its founder, Yiming Zhang.
