Serving that community also means broadening what many would consider traditional creators or influencers. “The definition of ‘creator’ is changing,” Ms. Pappas said. “We’re seeing this next generation of creators being born in ways we haven’t seen previously. For me, what’s been interesting is that now anyone can become a creator. People are owning their own voice, not having to express a polished version of themselves. When you look at other platforms there’s different versions of yourself you’re putting out there, TikTok is about being yourself, warts and all, and this new generation of creators is really embracing that.”

It’s not likely that news will be the company’s future focus. “There are so many outlets to find breaking news, so I don’t see TikTok as being a place for that. We’re not a real-time platform,” Ms. Pappas said.

However, the app is becoming increasingly political. Young activists use TikTok to spread political messages; users of all ages have begun leveraging the platform to share opinions on issues surrounding the impeachment inquiry, Trump administration policies, the 2020 election and more.

Misinformation is something the company says it’s deeply concerned about heading into 2020. “I think as a platform of scale you can’t not think about these things today and there’s a level of responsibility we have to take on,” Ms. Pappas said. “We want to make sure we’re safeguarding our users from things like misinformation. We have a number of things we’re beefing up: our policies, ensuring we have expert moderators who know how to define that type of content, what is misinformation, and ensuring we have the technology in place to scan for things like coordinated abuse. We’re looking across the industry and looking at what we can learn from.”

Because TikTok is owned by Chinese tech conglomerate, Bytedance, the app has also faced charges of political censorship. According to The Washington Post, employees of TikTok in the U.S. were pressured to censor “culturally problematic” content that might offend the Chinese government.

“This is something that I want to wholeheartedly stress: We do not censor any content based on political sensitivities,” Ms. Pappas said. “Everything from the U.S. market is driven from the U.S. team. We have U.S. moderation team, our head of trust and safety is in the U.S., it’s a U.S.-led operation. We don’t do any type of censorship in that regard and wouldn’t even if we were asked.”