There is a general lack of complete OSINT tools dedicated towards TikTok; but in this OSINT Tool Review, we closely look at one very effective NodeJS-based script that provides Digital Investigators with a wide range of capabilities ranging from extracting TikTok video posts, scrape user data, and extract media / data associated with hashtags. ‘TikTok Scraper’ is a lightweight but highly powerful tool that is very easy to install and deploy either directly through the NodeJS command-line interface or by using Docker. According to the Github repository associated with ‘TikTok Scraper’, the tool has the following key capabilities:

• Download unlimited post metadata from the user, hashtag, trends, or music-ID pages
• Save post metadata to JSON/CSV files
• Download media (with or without watermark) and save it to a ZIP file
• Sign URLs and create a custom request to the TikTok API
• Extract metadata from the user, hashtag and single video pages
• Save previous progress and download only new videos that weren’t downloaded before
• View and manage previously downloaded post history
• Scrape and download user, hashtag, music feeds and single videos in batch mode

It goes without saying, this tool is highly recommended based on its wide range of capabilities in addition to the fact that it is quick-to-install and quick-to-deploy. Whilst the prospect of using NodeJS for the first time may be a daunting prospect, the installation instructions provided by the developers on Github are extremely comprehensive for any beginner. The functionality of the script is flawless, though it is hoped that it can be further complemented with a visual interface – this would certainly lend greater power and flexibility to the tool itself.

The variety of data that TikTok Scraper can extract is significantly far-ranging. During our test, we uploaded extracted videos and user data into Paliscope YOSE; the result of which was very extensive. YOSE’s AI-driven video analysis capabilities provided us with a detailed view of the content contained within the media such as violent activity, money, drugs and sexual activity. At the same time, YOSE’s AI capabilities also enabled us to visualise extracted user data within an interactive link analysis chart. All-in-all, TikTok Scraper combined with Paliscope YOSE proved to be exceptionally effective.