Every Screen on the Planet: The Secret Story of TikTok

TikTok boasts 2 billion users across the world, and since its founding in 2018, it has gained unprecedented influence over our culture, politics, and even commerce. And yet we still know very little about the app’s inner-workings and its China-based parent company ByteDance. To put it in starker terms, we don’t fully understand how its addictive algorithm functions or why it has hooked us so dramatically.

In Time Bomb, reporter Emily Baker-White will relate for the first time the full story of TikTok, through the lenses of business, politics and culture, to help us understand the company and its technology. With exhaustive reporting and exclusive access, Baker-White will take us behind the scenes of TikTok’s creation and growth, its contentious relationship with governments worldwide, and its astounding – and continuous – impact on society.