TikTok API seems to be not fully functional for several months, and researchers can’t retrieve data correctly.
Our investigations show the insufficiency of the current research API offered by TikTok. The findings reveal significant problems with the API, including missing data for a notable portion of videos, even official ones, videos from China and advertisements. The results show that the official API hinders accurate analysis of TikTok's algorithms and content, especially when researchers rely on data donations from users. To track the API's performance and any improvements, we have created a public dashboard that monitors the availability of inaccessible videos, including those from well-known accounts. The report argues that the current limitations of the official API make comprehensive research difficult. It suggests supporting researchers who use data scraping as an additional way to ensure the accuracy of information.
We started our investigation by looking at more than 70.000 out of 260.000 videos that scientific researchers were not able to access through the TikTok Research AP. We scraped the metadata of each video separately to find explanations for their inaccessibility.
The API failed to provide metadata for a portion of videos, including official TikTok videos, advertisements, videos from China, and content from specific accounts. The API has limitations regarding accuracy, completeness, timeliness, consistency, and validity of data. The report also advocates for empowering researchers to use data scraping to verify data quality.
