tiktok

Google rescues TikTok, deletes over 5 million negative comments to spike up ratings

The never ending war between YouTube and TikTok and hashtags asking users to ban TikTok, especially in India, has an abysmal impact for which ratings were dropped to 3 from 4.7, and then it suddenly plunged to 1.2, its lowest rating ever. But tech giant Google brings off the bummer and becomes a saviour of TikTok.

Since the last few days, an argy-bargy over TikTok ban and privacy has been witnessed by all the social media platforms. The never ending war between YouTube and TikTok and hashtags asking users to ban TikTok, especially in India, has an abysmal impact for which ratings were dropped to 3 from 4.7, and then it suddenly plunged to 1.2, its lowest rating ever.

But tech giant Google brings off the bummer and becomes a saviour of TikTok. According to the latest media reports, Google has deleted 5 million negative reviews for TikTok from the Play Store after the catastrophes.

Presently, Google Play Store has 22 million reviews for TikTok that means it has removed more than 5 million reviews which ultimately improved its ratings, now it is 1.6 and is progressively increasing.

Debacle began a few days back when a popular Youtuber CarryMinati, whose real name is Ajay Negar, created a video in YouTube vs TikTok where he was seen criticising popular TikToker Amir Siddiqui, who had once claimed that he would be honoured to get criticised by CarryMinati.

The video has gone viral and become an extracting point for memers. Although, the video was removed from the platform on the basis of content violation but, again, Ajay Negar has come up with another video asking his followers to stop misusing the video for their benefit. Ajay became emotional while talking about the video and delivering the message at the same time.

Another debacle came when one of the videos of Faizal Siddiqui, TikTok influencer, came into a light where he was allegedly promoting an acid attack on women by recreating a disturbing scene.

It seems like the war between the YouTube and TikTok doesn’t come to an end, but Google is somewhat guarding TikTok from its utter failure.

TT vs YT: TikTok facing the wrath, ratings drop drastically after YouTuber Carry Minati’s viral video

TikTok Lite has been exposed even more with the rating dropping to 1.1 on the play store. Even, the ByteDance-owned platform is also criticised rigorously for its weak content moderation policies that allows sharing of harmful and abusive videos. many of the TikTok influencers have Initiated an outrage for social media users for promoting problematic contents.

Success & popularity that comes easily, always comes with equal responsibility. TikTok also got fame in the Indian market and now is facing a fall too. With 4.6 stars to 2 TikTok has been facing storm lately.

What happened?

A current in the seabed triggers a storm in the sea; similarly, an Indian’s act triggered this TikTok storm. An Indian YouTuber Carry Minati’s video titled ‘YouTube vs TikTok: The End’ called out the creators of TikTok for plagiarising content from YouTube amongst other things. Eventually, YouTube was forced to take off the video as a war erupted between YouTube fans and TikTok fans.

Apart from this incident that polarized the social media, even the ratings of TikTok has been severely affected on the app store. In less than a week, the ratings have come down to 2 from 4.6 with several Indians calling for a ban with trending #TikTokBan and #TikTokExposed on social media.

TikTok Lite has been exposed even more with the rating dropping to 1.3 on the play store. Even, the ByteDance-owned platform is also criticised rigorously for its weak content moderation policies that allows sharing of harmful and abusive videos.

However, many of the TikTok influencers have Initiated an outrage for social media users for promoting acid attack on women, rape, misogyny and many other problematic contents. The videos that go on viral with million views for a long time multiplying the root problems.

An Appeal

Rekha Sharma, Chairman of National Commission of Women, has called for an appeal to the Indian government for a complete ban on TikTok for showcasing and promoting objectionable content which impacts youths in a negative and wrong way.

Rekha Sharma tweeted, “I am of the strong opinion that @TikTok_IN should be banned totally and will be writing to GOI. It not only has objectionable videos but is also pushing youths towards an unproductive life where they are living only for few followers.”

Spokesperson of TikTok India stated, “Keeping TikTok safe is our top priority. We have made it clear in our Term of Service and Community guidelines that clearly outlines what is not acceptable on our platform. As per our policy we do not allow content that risks others safety, promotes physical harm, glorifies violence against women. The behaviour in question violates our guidelines and we have taken down content, suspended the account and we are working with law enforcement agencies as appropriate”

Old problems recur

Basically, this isn’t TikTok’s first controversy at all. The app which crossed 2 million global downloads last month has been criticised for promoting the reckless content in pursuit of vitality.

Even in the past, TikTok has invited ban by the Indian courts which came the last of which came in April 2019. However, this app has been growing uninterruptedly as hordes of first-time internet users across different places thronged to the video creation app.

In Q1 2020, TikTok recorded the best quarter for any app with over 315 million downloads over App Store and Google Play Store according to Sensor Tower. India is TikTok’s largest market globally with over 200 million users.

Every popularity comes tagged with responsibility

Sachin Sharma, Director – Sales and partnership of TikTok India shared “The safety of the users is a key priority for us. We are committed towards maintaining a safe and positive in-app for users along with abiding by and complying with the local laws. So, we have put in place protective measures by combining content moderation technology with a robust human moderation team. In India, moderation team covers major regional languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati etc.”

A TikTok spokesperson further added “With TikTok suspending user accounts that violate community guidelines, it prevents creators from logging into their accounts, post any content or interact with other content on the platform.” We stand committed to Ooh extending power support to law enforcement agencies for any further actions.”

Disney’s head of Streaming Kevin Mayer is appointed as TikTok’s new CEO. Mayer will also serve as the COO of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.

App downloads increases during COVID-19 lockdown; TikTok became the most downloaded app

Chinese video-sharing app TikTok has become the most downloaded app among social media applications in India during the lockdown period.

TikTok’s #GharbaithoIndia campaign, launched in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, generated over 4.6 billion views. Instagram’s live views grew more than 60 percent during the first week of 21-day lockdown.

Besides ByteDance‘s video app, WhatsApp, Facebook, Helo, Instagram and VMate were the most downloaded social networking apps on iOS or Google Play.

India and Brazil were the two largest markets by downloads on Google Play in Q1 2020.

As working from home becomes the norm, and more schools and gyms begin to close, we’ve seen an increase in downloads of apps that allow consumers to maintain normality while staying at home. Conferencing and collaboration tools such as ZOOM, Google Hangouts, and Microsoft Teams have seen strong adoption.

It is suggested that the number of downloads on both Android and iOS devices has increased by up to 20% (around 49 million downloads) when compared to the number of downloads in January. In terms of app spends, Tinder took the top spot. It was followed by video-streaming apps YouTube, Netflix, IQIYI, and Tencent Video.

In its latest Global Market Index, App Annie reveals that users spent a record $23.4 billion on mobile apps in Q1 2020. This period also saw new downloads crossing 31 billion, growing 15 percent over Q4 2019.

And all this is because consumers are exploring newer avenues of recreation and relaxation during the lockdown to keep themselves busy.

Local startups face competition from Bytedance’s TikTok and Helo

Bytedance made entry with apps like ‘TikTok’ (formerly Musically) and ‘Helo’ in India.

Bytedance made entry with apps like ‘TikTok’ (formerly Musically) and ‘Helo’ in India. Till early 2018, local startups like Clip App (video) and ShareChat (social networking) were blossoming.

TikTok started mushrooming quite well and to counter ShareChat, ByteDance cloned the former’s model and launched ‘Helo’ in early 2018.

TikTok started disintegrated the market share of Clip App. Struggling to retain acquired users and match marketing budgets of $75 billion valued Chinese group, Clip App finally struck an acquihire deal with ShareChat.

ShareChat has been witnessing intense competition from Helo which continues to burn anywhere between $15-18 million every month over the past six months. Backed with an aggressive approach, Helo has been gaining market share quickly while ShareChat userbase is witnessing its daily active users plateau over the last quarter of 2018.

Helo had 10 million downloads in the last month. On the other hand, ShareChat numbers of install stood at 7 million.

“Everyone in vernacular content space in India is raising capital. And you are competing with Bytedance, a continuous inflow of funds anyway becomes necessary”, said one of the startup’s founders on condition of anonymity.

ShareChat has been in talks with Tencent to rake in about $200 million with the help of the Chinese MNC and others. The deal if materialises would value ShareChat in the range of $600-700 million.

If Tencent takes on the responsibility to financially help ShareChat in its fight against ByteDance’s Helo, both might stay in the game for a long run. Still, in case there is no progress towards profitability, it is all big money down the drain.