it seems to be the first major Chinese player who makes inroads with global (and in particular American) audiences, something that other Chinese companies are notoriously bad at. And they really seem to be onto something when it comes to young users. I wouldn't brush them off.

All they realized was that people wanted Vine, even if it wasn’t called Vine anymore. I still don’t know why Twitter shuttered them, it seems stupid in hindsight.

I have massive distrust in companies headquartered in China. No company of TikTok's (purported) scale w.r.t revenue/valuation is going to be divorced from the influence if not ownership by the CCP.

I would not invest in the Chinese government, and therefore would not invest in a large Chinese company since they are two sides of the same coin. Not only out of morality, but because I don't want to expose myself to financial risk by betting on a communist government/dictatorship not to fuck me.

TikTok's projecting $17bn revenue and some profits this year. That's got to be worth something.

Is anyone auditing these projections?