TikTok is fumbling critical business partnerships and cluttering its app with unpopular features. It could be the beginning of the end.

The most obvious example is the TikTok Shop. The company is pushing its eCommerce so hard you hear about it more than any other topic on the app, both in ads and organic videos from creators hoping for a share of the profits. The app is even testing a new feature that uses AI to identify products in the background of regular content and turn every single video into an ad.

Then there’s the videos themselves. In a bid to compete with YouTube, TikTok is reportedly preparing to allow users to post 30-minute videos and prompting creators to upload horizontal content instead of the app’s standard vertical format. TikTok is even encouraging people to upload photo slideshows instead of videos altogether. On top of that, TikTok just fumbled a relationship with Universal Music Group, which pulled its music catalog off the platform and silenced any video featuring Taylor Swift, the Weeknd, and every other Universal artist.

  • VaggumonEnglish
    39•10 months ago

    So it Twitter, but people still suck Elon’s Dick, Reddit pretty much told people to go fuck themselves, Facebook has been a shit show for over a decade. So I won’t hold my breath.

    • @[email protected]English
      10•10 months ago

      I think a big difference, though, is that there is political force to ending TikTok. The US government has no major issues with Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. existing. Remember, there’s actual legislation banning TikTok. Whether that makes a real difference or not, well, I guess we just wait and see. Personally, I think they all should go down in flames.

      • @Crack0n7uesdayEnglish
        8•10 months ago

        The only ban on tiktok in the US refers to phones specifically given out by the government to be engaged in government business. Basically uncle sam said his employees can’t play one specific video game on their work phone.

      • @WappenEnglish
        7•10 months ago

        What’s the actual argument behind banning TikTok though? IMO it’s just so that US firms remain the monopoly in the social media market.

        • @[email protected]English
          7•9 months ago

          Honestly, it’s more likely that they want to ban it because it allows China to manipulate the narrative in the US in ways that only Facebook, etc were able to in years past.

          I love it when free market capitalists get a taste of their own “let people vote with their wallets, regulation be damned” medicine. The young generations are being radicalized against the US’s propaganda system and there’s not a goddamned thing our piece of shit Patriot Act-signing, civil-rights-eroding propagandistic demagogues can do about it (short of an outright ban).

        • @[email protected]English
          5•10 months ago

          Like @[email protected] said, it’s on government phones. The thinking goes that TikTok, which is a Chinese company, is exporting too much data from US government devices. In other words, the government is worried the Chinese are spying. Given the amount of data that the TikTok app actually collects, the fear is probably not unreasonable. All corporate-owned social media collects way too much data, but TikTok really is next level from what I’ve read.

        • @Crack0n7uesdayEnglish
          1•10 months ago

          Social media in general collects a lot of private information, so part of the reason is that bytedance as a whole company and their headquarters and owners is in China where they wouldn’t be subjected to US laws and regulations. If Facebook moved over seas they would probably do the same to Facebook.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    2•10 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The company is pushing its eCommerce so hard you hear about it more than any other topic on the app, both in ads and organic videos from creators hoping for a share of the profits.

    In a bid to compete with YouTube, TikTok is reportedly preparing to allow users to post 30-minute videos and prompting creators to upload horizontal content instead of the app’s standard vertical format.

    Outrage is brewing among a growing contingent of users who post videos arguing TikTok is ruined now, and analysts say the company is jeopardizing its success.

    But TikTok spearheaded the short-video revolution, and it risks straying from its core use case of fun, entertaining clips and losing its edge.”

    The problem was bad enough that The Atlantic ran a story with the headline declaring “Instagram Is Over.” As time wore on it seems Meta has stuck the landing, but only through abandoning or at least retooling the projects that were alienating users.

    Instagram honed its Reels product, ditched its shop, and embarked on a PR campaign promising that the app was hearing and responding to complaints.

    The original article contains 975 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!