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TikTok’s rapid growth shows the potency of video
The app has amassed 1bn users faster than its predecessors
TikTok is not just for lip-syncing teenagers. The video-sharing app, best known for viral dances and trends, recently hit 1bn monthly active users. And it did so at a record pace. It took Facebook roughly nine years to hit the billion-user mark, around eight for Instagram and seven for each of YouTube and Whatsapp. TikTok, launched in 2016, managed to reach the milestone in just five years.
The app’s rapid ascent can be explained in part by the growing popularity of the internet. The number of people logging onto the web has more than tripled since the early days of Facebook, according to Our World in Data, a research project based at Oxford University. Pandemic-induced lockdowns also accelerated TikTok’s rise. Although the platform was already wildly popular, having reached 500m users in 2018, in the first quarter of 2020, at the height of coronavirus restrictions, the app was downloaded 315m times. TikTok’s algorithm also played a part. The app’s “For You” page, which serves users an infinite stream of curated videos, is uncannily effective at keeping eyeballs glued to screens.
Whereas platforms like Facebook enjoyed a relatively laissez-faire regulatory climate when they launched, TikTok has faced more government scrutiny. In June 2020 India’s government banned it, along with dozens of other Chinese apps, citing national security concerns. A month later then President Donald Trump threatened to do the same. The platform has been banned in several countries—including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan—for “inappropriate” content. In April Bytedance, TikTok’s owner, was summoned by Chinese regulators, along with 33 other firms, and ordered to stop anti-competitive practices. And this week Ofcom, Britain’s broadcast regulator, issued new rules that will subject TikTok and other video-sharing platforms to fines if they fail to protect users from violent, hateful or other harmful content. Despite such setbacks, TikTok has continued to grow.
Rivals are catching on. Instagram and YouTube have launched their own short-video features, dubbed “Reels” and “Shorts”, respectively. Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s boss, recently said that the app would be further “leaning in” to video, adding that the platform is “no longer a photo-sharing app”. On October 5th the firm launched “Instagram Video”, which combines two formerly separate video features. TikTok’s rapid rise demonstrates a clear preference among social-media users for video content. That is, until the next blockbuster app comes along. ■