#SaveTikTok
Credit: Tech Crunch
What's The Story?
This week the popular Chinese social network, TikTok, is under review by the US Government. The US is looking "into potential national security risks as it relates to the app." After the announcement, #SaveTikTok and #TikTokBan were trending. The former has 398 million views while the latter has 225 million views. This story isn't just about banning TikTok, but about how bad actors can misdirect our attention.
Why Did TikTok Capture Attention?
Facebook is for Boomers, Instagram is for Millennials, and TikTok is for Gen-Z. TikTok monthly active users are about 800 million. TikTok's success boils down to a sophisticated AI that drives user engagement. As John Herrman aptly describes for the NYTimes:
Imagine a version of Facebook that was able to fill your feed before you’d friended a single person. That’s TikTok.
Taylor Lorenz writes in the Atlantic what led to the initial success of TikTok:
In a world where everyone’s content inevitably begins to look the same, TikTok videos feel bizarre and new. It’s an app full of people posting strange content to the internet with zero self-awareness or shame. That’s easy to mock, but it’s also what may lead to TikTok’s success.
I must confess, I go on TikTok and 30-minutes later I’m still on the platform. Each video is as entertaining as the next one. The user experience reminds me of Wikipedia. I remember in middle school spending hours on Wikipedia going from one article to another. I would start by reading about Steve Jobs and end with learning about Peruvian Apple Cactus. There's even a game called the Wikipedia Game based on this concept. The player must go from Article X to Article Y by only clicking on Wikipedia links.
I digress.
But my anecdote serves a purpose. The website kept me on there as long as possible capturing my attention.
TikTok has captured the attention of not only users but of influencers. David Dobrik, the famed YouTube influencer, exclusively produces videos on TikTok. He hasn't posted a video to YouTube since April 24th. His TikTok page has 19.6M followers about two million more than his YouTube page.
Established influencers aren't the only ones achieving success on the platform. No name creators go viral overnight. Mooptopia, a TikTok user, went from 1,000 followers to a million followers, to quitting the platform in under two weeks.
Users and influencers love TikTok. Our government does not.
What's the Big Picture?
Most TikTok videos are harmless. There is a video of a cat looking into a cardboard box with nearly 200 million views. The platform, however, is not.
War is evolving. 75 years ago, a nuclear bomb decided the fate of our world. This generation's war won't be fought with bombs, but computers.
Trump's Oklahoma rally is a prime example. The Trump campaign estimated there would be more than a million attendees at the event. Instead fewer than 10,000 attended. TikTok users claimed responsibility. A massive campaign was undertaken on the platform to create fake attendees drawing a blow to the campaign.
On the surface, this seems like anti-Trump supporters playing a prank. Deep down, the implications are more disturbing. Was this a prank or an "Attention Hack"? Did China hijack the feed to embarrass Trump and the US government?
I expect the US to ban TikTok. More country specific social media platforms will appear. China has been doing this for years. Facebook is banned in China. Most Chinese citizens use WeChat.
As fictional President Glenn Walken of the West Wing remarked, "We live in the real world. Our moral value systems only work if everyone plays by the same rules." Expect social media platforms to become one of the battlegrounds in the fight for attention.
What Are the Lessons For Your Brand?
Don't rely on one platform. This has been a lesson discussed for years. Zynga, famously, relied on Facebook for its users. That relationship abruptly ended in 2012 and Zynga has been recovering ever since.
Pay attention to policy issues. TikTok has been a point of contention for a while among federal policymakers. Brands must do their due diligence before deciding to create content on a platform.