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.

  • astronaut_sloth@mander.xyzEnglish
    3·
    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.