How did TikTok get its start? What is the history of the company?
TikTok, originally called Douyin, was founded in China in September 2016 by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company. ByteDance was founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, a Chinese entrepreneur and engineer. Initially, the company focused on developing news and content aggregation apps, but it soon shifted its focus to creating a short-form video-sharing platform.