You’ve gotten a few answers already that explain what it is, but a lot of the discussion misses the “why” of the situation. There’s a strong anti-US government part to the whole situation that basically says “if you’re going to ban tiktok in the US because you’re afraid of China getting our data/controlling the algorithm then we’ll just join a social media site whose servers are actually in China!” It’s a big FU to the government.
You’ve gotten a few answers already that explain what it is, but a lot of the discussion misses the “why” of the situation. There’s a strong anti-US government part to the whole situation that basically says “if you’re going to ban tiktok in the US because you’re afraid of China getting our data/controlling the algorithm then we’ll just join a social media site whose servers are actually in China!” It’s a big FU to the government.