TikTok's API Guidelines Are a Minefield for Researchers

BKC Affiliate Joe Bak-Coleman writes about TikTok’s new API designed to provide data access to qualified researchers.

“All API ToS’s [Terms of Service] are violated at times, but the conditions TikTok has created seem distinct in that there appears to be no plausible pathway to published research without violating the ToS…Given this lack of options, our choices are to either avoid the API entirely or break the ToS and let the lawsuits fly. Ideally, the research community can convince TikTok to loosen the ToS and make them more practical. Failing that, the question is not whether the ToS will be broken, but how and by whom.”

Read more in Tech Policy Press.