What we learned looking inside TikTok’s live-streaming money machine

When an Australian streamer told us she was making her living from fan donations on TikTok Live, it seemed like a sign of something new happening on social media. It sparked an investigation that led ABC News Story Lab to an Australian who spent more than $300,000 in a single month on the app — all just given to strangers on the internet. We also developed a way to track millions of dollars worth of gifts given on TikTok Live and visited a streamer at home while she was working. Whenever a story like this is published, there’s plenty that…