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TikTok claims top spot for most downloaded app in 2019

The controversial social media app TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, was downloaded more times in 2019 than Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and other social media apps. The data company SensorTower says TikTok was downloaded a jaw-dropping 700 million times last year.

But the leading social media app worldwide was WhatsApp, which 850 million users downloaded in 2019, according to the tech blog CNET.

TikTok continues to be popular as a tool to upload short videos, especially for teens and young adults, CNET reports. The app remains popular in the United States despite serious security concerns: both the Army and Navy have banned the use of TikTok over fears of data mining and hacking.

“The app has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months. Not only is the US government suspicious of Huawei and its potential to harm national security, but ByteDance and TikTok have been accused of being threats to user privacy, security and free speech,” CNET reports. “A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in California claims the app has been illegally and secretly harvesting personally identifiable user data and sending it to China, for instance.”

In late 2019, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, released a report denying that it had ever censored videos at the request of the Chinese government, a claim many tech watchers found hard to believe.