Explores murders that went viral on the social media app TikTok. Includes exclusive access to the police investigations and families.
Chapter 1 The Mother and Daughter Killers
Documentary exploring true-crime cases linked to the social-media platform. In the early hours of February 11, 2022, 21-year-olds Saqib Hussain and Hashim Ijazuddin were found dead in a burning car on the A46 in Leicestershire. Within a short time, police arrested 22-year-old TikTok influencer Mahek Bukhari and her 45-year-old mother Ansreen, who it turned out had been in a secret relationship with Saqib that began when he was just 18.
Chapter 2 The Killing of Sania Khan
After surviving an attempt on her life, TikTok star Sania Khan went viral campaigning for South Asian women's rights, but this put her in mortal danger from her ex-husband.
Chapter 3 The Killing of Alexis Sharkey
A look at the case of American influencer Alexis Sharkey, who was declared missing in November 2020 by her husband Tomas Sharkey. When her body was found in a side road shortly after, detectives began an investigation that led to her spouse.
TikTok, whose mainland Chinese counterpart is Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. It can be accessed with a smartphone app.
Since its launch, TikTok has become one of the world's most popular social media platforms, using recommendation algorithms to connect content creators with new audiences. Many of its users are young and part of Generation Z. In April 2020, TikTok surpassed two billion mobile downloads worldwide. Cloudflare ranked TikTok the most popular website of 2021, surpassing Google. The popularity of TikTok has allowed viral trends in food and music to take off and increase the platform's cultural impact worldwide.
TikTok has come under scrutiny due to data privacy violations, mental health concerns, misinformation, offensive content, and its role during the Israel–Hamas war. Countries have fined, banned, or attempted to restrict TikTok to protect children or out of national security concerns over possible user data collection by the Chinese government through ByteDance.
Corporate structure
TikTok Ltd was incorporated in the Cayman Islands and is based in both Singapore and Los Angeles.