 | |||||
| Developer(s) | ByteDance | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial release | May 2020 | ||||
| Stable release(s) | |||||
| |||||
| Available in | 6 languages | ||||
List of languages English, Indonesian, Japanese, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese | |||||
| Type | Video sharing | ||||
| License | Proprietary | ||||
| Website | lemon8-app | ||||
Lemon8 is a social media app owned by Heliophilia Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean company connected to the Chinese internet company ByteDance. It was launched in 2020 and modeled after Xiaohongshu.
The app was first launched in Japan in May 2020 under the name Sharee, [1] [2] and hit 1 million downloads in March 2022. It launched in the United States and United Kingdom in February 2023, [3] resulting in it becoming one of the most-downloaded apps on App Store in the United States a month later following influencer marketing campaigns. [4]
In November 2024, Lemon8 began to be integrated with TikTok, allowing users to link their profiles between the services and find their followers. [2]
Lemon8 has been compared to Instagram, Pinterest, and Chinese app Xiaohongshu (also known as RED or RedNote outside of China), [5] with a particular focus on lifestyle content targeting women (such as beauty, food, and home decor). [6] [7] [4] [8]
While Lemon8 is credited as being a product of Heliophilia Pte. Ltd., a private company registered in Singapore, that company shares the exact same address as TikTok's offices in the country. TikTok's global general counsel has also spoken on behalf of Lemon8. [9]
The U.S. launch of Lemon8 coincided with scrutiny over ByteDance and TikTok's operations in the country; [4] lawmakers expressed concerns with Lemon8 due to its connection with ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. Lindsay Gorman, head of technology and geopolitics at the German Marshall Fund and a former tech advisor for the Biden administration, has stated "it has to do with gathering information on users and it has the same ownership structure, being a child of ByteDance, so I think the same issues are going to come up". [1]
In January 2025, ahead of oral arguments in the United States Supreme Court over an act of Congress that would prohibit ByteDance or its subsidiaries from operating social networking services in the United States, TikTok began to increasingly carry sponsored posts that advertise Lemon8 to U.S. users. The ads promoted Lemon8 as a "backup app", emphasizing its TikTok account integration and implying that it was a platform "where the government is not 100% controlling what we see". [2] On 19 January 2025, after the act was found constitutional, Lemon8 was included in a suspension of service for all ByteDance-owned apps in the United States. [10] In January 2025, Texas governor Greg Abbott prohibited Lemon8 on all government devices. [11]
Musical.ly was a social media service headquartered in Shanghai with an American office in Santa Monica, California, on which platform users created and shared short lip-sync videos. The first prototype was released in April 2014, and then after that, the official version was launched in August 2014. Through the app, users could create 15-second to 1-minute lip-syncing music videos and choose sound tracks to accompany, use different speed options and add pre-set filters and effects. The app also allowed users to browse popular "musers", content, trending songs, sounds and hashtags, and uniquely interact with their fans.
This page is a timeline of social media. Major launches, milestones, and other major events are included.
ByteDance Ltd. is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
Xiaohongshu, known in English as RedNote, is a Chinese social networking and e-commerce platform.
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin, is a short-form video-hosting service owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. It can be accessed through a mobile app or through its website.
Zhang Yiming is a Chinese Internet entrepreneur. He founded ByteDance in 2012, developed the news aggregator Toutiao and the video sharing platform Douyin. Zhang is one of the richest individuals in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$45.6 billion as of October 2024, according to Forbes and US$43.1 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. On 4 November 2021, Zhang stepped down as CEO of ByteDance, completing a leadership handover announced in May 2021. According to Reuters, Zhang maintains over 50 percent of ByteDance's voting rights. The surging global popularity of TikTok made Zhang the richest man in China in 2024.
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Zynn was a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by Kuaishou, a Beijing-based internet technology company established in 2011 by Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao. It was used to create and share short videos, and it pays its users for using the app and referring others. Zynn was launched on May 7, 2020. It became the most-downloaded app in the App Store in the same month. It has also been criticized for being a "pyramid scheme", and it has faced accusations of plagiarism and stealing content. Aside from Zynn in North America, Kuaishou is available under the name Kwai in Russia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, America, India, and the Middle East. Kwai used to be available in Australia and the United States on the App Store, but was removed at an unknown date. Zynn was permanently shut down on the 20th of August, 2021.
Triller is an American video-sharing social networking service that was first released for iOS and Android in 2015. The service allows users to create and share short-form videos, including videos set to, or automatically synchronized to, music using artificial intelligence technology. It initially operated as a video editing app before adding social networking features.
Lark Suite is an enterprise collaboration platform developed by ByteDance and first released to the public in 2019.
Many countries have imposed past or ongoing restrictions on the short-form video-hosting service TikTok. Bans from government devices usually stem from national security concerns over potential access of data by the Chinese government. Other bans have cited children's well-being and offensive content such as pornography. There are also free speech concerns about TikTok ban.
There are reports of TikTok and Douyin censoring political content related to China and other countries as well as content from minority creators. TikTok says that its initial content moderation policies, many of which are no longer applicable, were aimed at reducing divisiveness and were not politically motivated.
In 2020, the United States government announced that it was considering banning the Chinese social media platform TikTok upon a request from Donald Trump, the president of the United States, who viewed the app as a national security threat. The result was that the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance—which initially planned on selling a small portion of TikTok to an American company—agreed to divest TikTok to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries where restrictions are also being considered due to privacy concerns, which themselves are mostly related to its ownership by a firm based in China.
CapCut, known in China as JianYing and formerly internationally as ViaMaker, is a Chinese short-form video and graphic editing app developed by the Chinese company ByteDance.
The short-form video-hosting service TikTok has been under a de jure nationwide ban in the United States since January 19, 2025, due to the US government's concerns over potential user data collection and influence operations by the government of the People's Republic of China. The ban took effect after ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, refused to sell the service before the deadline of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Prior to the ban, individual states, cities, universities, and government-affiliated devices had restricted TikTok.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) is an act of Congress that was signed into law on April 24, 2024, as part of Public Law 118-50. It would ban social networking services within 270 days if they are determined by the president of the United States and relevant provisions to be a "foreign adversary controlled application", with a possible extension of up to 90 days to be granted by the president; the definition covers websites and application software, including mobile apps. The act explicitly applies to ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries—including TikTok—without the need for additional determination, with the company to become compliant by January 19, 2025. It ceases to be applicable if the foreign adversary controlled application is divested and no longer considered to be controlled by a foreign adversary of the United States.
TikTok has been involved in a number of lawsuits since its founding, with a number of them relating to TikTok's data collection techniques.
TikTok, Inc. v. Garland, 604 U.S. ___ (2025), was a United States Supreme Court case brought by ByteDance Ltd. and TikTok on the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) based on the Freedom of Speech Clause of the First Amendment, the Bill of Attainder Clause of Article One, Section Nine, and the Due Process Clause and Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The case was consolidated with Firebaugh v. Garland, a lawsuit filed by TikTok content creators against the law.
Mao Wenchao, also known as Charlwin Mao, is the CEO and co-founder of Xiaohongshu, a Shanghai-based social media and e-commerce platform. He was born in Hubei Province of China. He attended Shanghai Jiao Tong University beginning in 2003, majoring in Mechatronics. He participated in exchange programs with overseas universities and university entrepreneurship competitions. Mao later attended Stanford University for his MBA studies. Mao graduated in 2007 with a degree in Computer Science and Engineering and went on to work at Bain & Company.
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