Notes and thoughts on the TikTok API workshop
And access to social media data in the post-API era
We're very lucky to have the TikTok team here in Boston to give us a workshop accessing their API (picture above). I'm writing down my thoughts before I forget.
Some highlights
You can get information about videos, users, and comments.
No, you cannot download the videos directly.
1,000 queries a day.
Currently open to researchers in the US and EU.
You do need to be a faculty member or postdoc to apply independently.
Students might need endorsement letters from their advisors. Or they can be added as collaborators by their advisors, which does not require additional approval.
Some of the attendees got temporary access to API for the workshop. So it does work as promised.
Resources & application process
I must say TikTok did a good job creating the documentation for accessing the API. All you need to do is follow the instructions on their website. So here, let me list some of the URLs:
API landing page: https://developers.tiktok.com/products/research-api/
Application page: https://developers.tiktok.com/application/research-api
Getting started: https://developers.tiktok.com/doc/research-api-get-started
Postman demo: https://www.postman.com/tiktokresearchapi/workspace/tiktok-research-api-demo/
To apply for access, you need to:
Create a research account here
Submit an application here
Wait for approval (typically takes 3-4 weeks)
My take
So clearly, the API is not perfect. You won't get all the information you need, and it's heavily rate-limited. But I think this is a good start. And the API already allows a lot of research. In fact, I recently reviewed a paper using the TikTok API.
Also, I was encouraged by the fact that a dedicated team at TikTok is working on this. I met the team in August at Stanford, where they did the same workshop. This time, five members flew to Boston for the workshop. They were really engaging during the whole process and took the feedback seriously (but no guarantee that the requests would be addressed). I learned later that some of them used to be in academia, so they could sympathize with the researchers.
I think the most important takeaway today is that, not surprisingly, the primary obstacle to getting better access to TikTok data seems to be convincing higher-level decision-makers within the organization. If researchers want any new API features, they should try to send as much feedback as possible to the platform. This will help the team behind the API make a case when they try to convince other stakeholders. Some colleagues and I were also talking about following up with the team. I hope something concrete will come out of that later.
What about other platforms?
TikTok is not the only platform that has started to provide API access to researchers. For example, Meta has released a new content library. Google released a new research program, quietly. Even Twitter has quietly rolled out an API access program for researchers in the EU. I will write about them once I have more information.
Why did all of these platforms suddenly start to provide APIs again? Well, some of the developers confirmed that this was due to the DSA (Digital Services Act) in Europe. So, apparently, the companies are under a lot of regulatory pressure. I guess what we need to do is keep putting pressure on the platforms until the researchers get what they need to study those problems.