TikTok is one of this era’s most famous social media apps. It has over a billion active users, with most of them under the age of 30. An average TikTok user spends about an hour on the app. From the total demographics, china seems to have the most considerable number of users, followed by India and then the USA. Even in Europe, TikTok is quite famous these days. Each country and region has its content and viewership. While travelling to different countries, I have seen there is a great difference in terms of TikTok content quality. So, if you want to travel around the world and see the world from the eyes of TikTok. We bring you a guide that allows you to change country on TikTok to experience the content of other regions.
How does TikTok decide your country and region, and what type of content to show you?
First of all, we need to know how the TikTok algorithm works to determine your country and location. For that, we would have to dive deeper into the location triangulation algorithm of TikTok. You might have heard that VPN does not work for TikTok. VPN only spoofs the IP address and allocates you an IP address from another country. So TikTok uses GSM information from the SIM as well as your phone’s location via Google Play Store or Apple App Store. I have tried to figure out how it gets the location. It comes from inside the phone and changes when you change country.
For example, when I was in Germany, I would get content from Germany when I went on vacations to another country. Then, I would get content from that country. I even changed the content preferences to Deutsch. Then, I turned off the phone’s location services. Removed stored data of Google Play Services (As it is responsible for location storing and sharing). After removing all the data from apps that store location, I used a VPN to figure out the location and show the content from my current country. One point to ponder is that I haven’t been given access and permission to access the location services to the TikTok app.
The Only Possible and Working Method to Change Location on Tiktok:
First, we will talk about the methods that I tried that didn’t work; then, we will tell you in detail how to change the location of TikTok on iPhone and Android phones.
First, talking about methods that don’t work:
- VPN doesn’t work.
- Using a phone without a sim card doesn’t help change the country.
- By removing the SIM card, using VPN, and clearing the cache and saved data of TikTok. Google Play Store and Services do not work either.
- Any of the above-mentioned methods To spoof location and change content preferences to the language of the country does not work.
- Using TOR to triangulate the location also doesn’t bear any fruit.
- Taking out the SIM, factory resetting the phone, and changing the location of the Google Play store and phone while setting up the phone might work for a while. Still, once you use the phone without a VPN, it will change the location to the current location, so this method is not practical.
The only method that works to change country on Tiktok:
The only method that finally worked and allowed me to see the content from Deutschland was by using the sim from Germany. Once I put a sim card from the German Network Provider, I cleared the cache and TikTok data from Settings. After that, I signed in again to my TikTok account, and then It finally worked and showed me content from Germany. You can do the same to see the content from the US. It would be best if you found a sim of some American network provider.
If you have a sim from a specific country on your smartphone, the content you post on TikTok will first be available to that country’s audience.
If you want to change the location of TikTok to apply for the creator fund, apply. You can use this guide.
Update: Now, if you just put the SIM of a specific country in your phone, even if the SIM is blocked or locked, TikTok will show you the content of the country you have a SIM of. Also, remember that if you tag a specific location on TikTok before posting it, the specific TikTok will target the audience of that location.
Change Location of TikTok on an Android Phone:
- Insert a SIM card from any mobile network provider in the target country.
- Goto Settings -> Application -> TikTok -> Storage & Cache -> Clear Cache -> Clear Storage.
- Now login to TikTok using your credentials.
Change TikTok Country on iPhone:
The guide for iPhone is the same; all you have to do is put in a SIM card from the target country whose content you want to watch on TikTok. Instead of deleting the cache and app data, delete the app and install it again. Now log in with your email/phone number/username and password.
That’s all, being a computer scientist by profession. It baffles me how TikTok determines the location of a user. Even I couldn’t figure out without a SIM where it is accessing my location with location services turned off and VPN on. This is something I would love to inquire about from TikTok developers.
Also, check out: Guide to changing the country of the Google Play store to access apps from other regions.
I can understand that not everyone has a spare SIM card from a different country. Yet, if you want to access other countries’ content and publish your TikToks to the audience, the public, or a specific land, You would have to get a SIM card from there. I hope this guide has helped you. If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments. Moreover, if you have figured out another way to change the location of TikTok, please share it with us.
