TikTok’s American audience is revolting, as the app switches over to its new, Americanized version.
With TikTok US separating from the global version of the app, and converting to Oracle servers and control, many have raised concerns that the new entity will change to better align with Republican talking points, given that the board of the new TikTok US group was hand-picked by the Trump team.
Those concerns have already sparked accusations of censorship, while over the weekend, TikTok suffered significant stability issues, caused, TikTok says, by a power outage at a U.S. data center.
But the instability, combined with the broader concern about the app’s separation from its Chinese owners, has spooked a lot of users, and prompted a sudden uptick in downloads of several alternatives, including:
- Upscrolled – An Instagram-style social platform which saw so much demand over the weekend that its servers crashed
- Skylight – An open source TikTok alternative, which saw a 150% jump in new user sign-ups over the weekend
- Yope – Not exactly a TikTok alternative, in the entertainment sense, but visual messaging app Yope has seen a big rise in Australia, in response to the local teen social media bans, and is now getting attention in the U.S. as well.
Will that trigger a longer-term swing against TikTok, and towards these other platforms, or is this a short-lived revolt, in response to the news, and things will eventually ease back to the mean?
Well, it’s hard to say, because right now, many users are accusing the new TikTok management of censoring content.
Many have raised examples of searches for “ICE” and “Minneapolis” failing to display results, or videos related to the latest ICE shooting getting very limited reach. This, potentially, could signal government interference, though TikTok has again blamed any instability, including algorithmic impacts, on the power outage at one of its U.S. servers.
Could the U.S. government actually look to use TikTok as a propaganda vehicle, and a means to sway young voters?
I mean, Trump did say last year that he would make TikTok “100% MAGA” if he could, while there have long been suggestions that the Chinese government censors certain content within the app, in order to better align with a pro-CCP agenda.
It does seem like the mechanisms, and the desire, could potentially be there, especially when you consider the broader influence of TikTok in the nation.
I don’t know that I’d put it past the U.S. government to potentially try this, but as yet, we have no definitive evidence to suggest such.
So maybe people are jumping ship too soon, and maybe this will only be a short-term revolt, before people resume regular activities.
Either way, it’s a trend of note for TikTok, while also, potentially, opening the door for another social media competitor to step in.
