TikTok, known in China as Douyin (Chinese: 抖音; pinyin: Dǒuyīn), is a video-sharing social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance.[4] The social media platform is used to make a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education, that have a duration from 15 seconds to one minute (three minutes for some users).[5][6] TikTok is an international version of Douyin, which was originally released in the Chinese market in September 2016.[7] Later, TikTok was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of mainland China; however, it only became available worldwide after merging with another Chinese social media service, Musical.ly, on 2 August 2018.