IBC
As unlikely as it may seem, the noose is tightening around Chinese-owned social media phenomenon TikTok. Were to be outright banned what impact would this have on the short form video creator community?
article here
With north of one billion monthly users and annual revenue in excess of $10bn plus a reach which touches virtually every aspect of business and culture, TikTok is the most influential social video app on the planet.
Yet it could be switched off in the Western world as
concerns mount about user data flowing back to Beijing. As draconian as it
seems, pressure is growing on regulators to act. This is particularly acute in
the US as it enters the presidential election cycle and where government
divisions, nineteen states and dozens of college campuses have already outlawed
its use.
“TikTok is under scrutiny for good reason, but it's not a
foregone conclusion that it's terminal,” says Tom Morrod, Co-founder, Caretta
Research. “It seems likely that there will be some limitations
imposed in the US and Europe, but there may be a couple of reasonable
steps that TikTok can take to avoid being banned outright (which
feels pretty extreme, in my opinion). The platform could either form under new
ownership in the US and Europe, or accept more regulation of data flows and
privacy.”
US politicians and media executives (including Meta CEO Mark
Zuckerberg have been sounding the alarm and calling for Apple and Google to
remove TikTok from stores. A move to ringfence data from its 80 million US
users in US-based Oracle servers has not assuaged doubts.
The FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, claimed
last June, that the Bytedance-owned app was “looking at everything from
search and browsing history, your keystroke patterns, draft messages, biometric
data, including voice print and face print that could be used in facial
recognition down the road.”
The noose is also tightening in Europe where TikTok is the
subject of two EU-wide privacy probes for sending data on its 250m+ EU users to
China. It must also comply with extensive new requirements on content
moderation under new digital rulebook, the DSA,
from mid-2023.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called
TikTok "deceptively innocent" and a cause of "real
addiction" among users, as well as a source of Russian disinformation.
Aside from spying allegations, the app is warned to have “consequences on the brain capacity of its users” notably children, a concern which French daily paper Le Parisien headlined on December 29.
In China, content on the site tends to be longer form and its algorithm promotes education content including maths and engineering. In the West, TikTok is accused of making its algorithm more addictive and feeding its audience with ‘digital fentanyl.’
According to the Pew Research Centre, two-thirds of
13-to-17-year-olds in the US use TikTok.
“It should be divested or banned in the US,” says Harry
Gestetner, co-founder of creator monetisation platform FanFix. “TikTok is
proven to be syphoning data to the Chinese government. There are fears it could
be used to spread propaganda or at very least being used to dumb kids down.”
There are legitimate concerns about privacy violations.
“Many users have complained that their accounts were hacked or deleted without
warning or explanation from TikTok itself,” says Guillermo Dvorak, Head of
Digital at media and behavioural planning agency Total Media. “While these
complaints may not be true (some of them seem fake), they could still create an
atmosphere where regulators feel compelled to take action against the app
because they think it's unsafe for users' data privacy rights.”
However, as Morrod points out, it is not consumers but
regulatory concerns that are threatening TikTok’s future. That suggests that
TikTok style short form is successful and in demand.
So what happens if that is taken away?
Who stands to gain most if TikTok is killed?
There are certainly no shortage of companies that would seek
to capitalise on the market for short-form video if TikTok were squeezed out.
Snap, Meta and YouTube all launched or doubled down on short
form video to counter TikTok’s success.
YouTube Shorts just surpassed 50 billion daily views, up from 30 billion
a year ago. Twitter could revitalise
Vine. Others include French snap sharing site BeReal and Triller, a music based
social platform.
“There are lots of contenders, but no obvious alternative
right now because it requires a particular configuration of audience, content
and algorithmic management in order to make it work properly,” says Morrod.
He says that network effects will tend towards “natural
clustering of users” and so the audience that creates and consumes short-form
will tend to stay primarily in one platform until something allows that
audience to naturally fragment. That could be as a result of different
demographics on TikTok vs Facebook or different content types on TikTok vs
YouTube).
Morrod adds, “It there is a regulatory change, some good
marketing and investing in key influencers could result in any number of
companies becoming the new home for that audience, but it's likely to consolidate
on a single platform.”
Meta, in theory,
has the most to gain from TikTok’s potential demise. It expanded short form video product Reels
onto Facebook a year ago, designated a $1 billion creator fund to encourage the
creator community to produce for it, and grew to more than 140 billion plays
across Facebook and Instagram a day by October.
“That’s a 50% increase from 6 months ago,” said Meta’s CFO
Susan Li on the Q3
2022 earnings call. “Reels is incremental to time spent on our apps. The
trends look good here and we believe that we are gaining time spent share on
competitors like TikTok.”
Others aren’t convinced.
Amy Gilbert,
Head of Social at London-based social media agency The Social Element, says, “Meta hasn't found a way to connect with
younger consumers or make Reels as profitable yet, and given their focus on the
Metaverse, Reels seems like more of a necessary evil for them rather than a
pillar of what the platform stands for.”
Like Caretta’s Morrod, she believes the biggest challenge that Meta (and
others) face is recreating the unique algorithm and
vibrant community that has made TikTok a household name.
“Despite Reels' algorithmic
features, they still fall short in delivering content that truly resonates with
users,” she says. “In comparison, the short-form algorithms on
platforms like Snapchat and Pinterest often feel too formulaic. Instagram does
a slightly better job at balancing a mix of creators and friends, but nothing
can match the personalisation
offered by TikTok.
“This platform has
been able to learn more about its users, and as a result, introduce them to new
creators, perspectives, and products they may not have discovered on other
platforms.”
Dvorak thinks the biggest winner of a potential TikTokk
demise would be YouTube, reasoning that Alphabet’s company may be able to gain
back some of its lost market share. The biggest on the other hand will be
creators.
“If TikTok were to either haemorrhage users or be outright
banned, the impact on the creator community would be devastating. For many,
TikTok was an opportunity to find their voice for the first time. If TikTok
were to disappear, or if it were forced to change its format so drastically
that it became unrecognizable from its current incarnation, it would be a huge
loss for creators. They may have to seek new platforms to distribute their
content on if they don't want to lose out on all that sweet, sweet ad revenue.”
Creators are already diversifying
FanFix seem convinced that action will be taken against
TikTok, in the US at least. It was launched 18 months ago to help Gen Z creators
develop and monetise communities from their TikTok following as a rival to what
they saw as existing platforms like Patreon which were not serving Gen Z.
FanFix co-founder Simon Pompan, however, believes
creators will simply move to other social media platforms with FanFix
continuing to serve them. Meta Reels is the platform most likely to win out,
they say.
“We’ve seen that creators like to diversify their revenue
stream away from any one social media,” explains Pompan. “A big goal for
TikTokkers is pulling that following off TikTok onto Instagram or Snap or
converting their content into longform on YouTube, or streaming on Twitch. Meta
has improved Reels in recent months and we can see more and more creators
shifting attention to it with less focus on TikTok.”
Despite TikTok’s runaway success it doesn't follow that the
market is universally trending towards short form content.
“Certainly, the dramatic collapse of Quibi suggests that
short form might not work in certain formats or with certain audiences,” Morrod
says. “Even if some of the alternative platforms do manage to get the content
right (more user-generated rather than episodic) and invest in an appropriate
algorithm they still might not have the right audience (seemingly, 'kids').”
The creator community is resourceful enough to figure out how to diversify their income by being on other platforms, creating merch and partnerships, and even setting up shops on Amazon.
For that reason, Gilbert says the biggest loss [of TikTok]
would be on the rest of us. “The departure of TikTok would be a
significant blow to the social media community and the unique atmosphere that
makes it so special. It fills a void that other imitators aren’t able to do.
Its algorithm helps bring new voices to the spotlight and keeps the internet
fun. If TikTok goes away, we'll miss out on that social experience we
want to be having and our ability to discover and connect with others because
nobody does it better.”
While the drive for
innovation may remain, the absence of TikTok would create a void that
other platforms would vie to fill with a captive audience.
“A ban
on TikTok could bring about the birth of a new generation of
short-form video platforms, ones that learn from TikTok's success and
bring something fresh to the table,” she says. “Regardless, a ban on TikTok in the US would be a game-changer
for the future of short-form videos and could have ripple effects throughout
the tech industry.”
China
trims TikTok power at home
Banning TikTok is not without precedent. The Indian government has banned it since 2020 along with dozens of other Chinese apps on national security grounds, following border clashes with China.
In the US, any similar move need to take into account First
Amendment concerns. “An outright ban,
especially one targeting Chinese companies writ large, risks looking like
Sinophobia,” says reporter Alex Palmer in the New York Times article “How
TikTok Became a Diplomatic Crisis.”
Ironically in China, TikTok’s success is considered a threat
to the Communist party for its potential to offer unfiltered news and views.
that the state there has taken considerable steps to control.
“The company is
caught in the middle between the old era and the new — too Chinese for America,
too American for China,” says Palmer.
“[In the US] TikTok is considered a Trojan horse — for
Chinese influence, for spying, or possibly both. In China, meanwhile, a broad
crackdown has sought to rein in high-flying tech companies and their founders,
out of fear that, with their influence, independence and popularity, they were
becoming alternative power bases to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Founder Zhang Yiming has taken a back seat from his role as
CEO, while the Chinese government takes more control. According to the NYT, the
Chinese state recently took a stake in a ByteDance subsidiary — the
implications are unavoidable.
“The Chinese government took one of three seats on the
subsidiary’s board, wielding a level of influence incommensurate with its
nominal stake. To turn a blind eye to the potential risks posed by a company
like TikTok is to ignore the political, economic and social infrastructure of
control that the Chinese government under Xi has spent more than a decade
constructing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment