> Was the split during the rebranding?

Musical.ly was acquired by Bytedance in 2017 and merged into TikTok in 2018 [1]. TikTok itself “was launched internationally in 2017” [2].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191005154207/https://beebom.co...

[2] https://chinagravy.com/what-is-douyin-an-introduction/