Update (January 30):
After ‘hit or miss’, a new meme/trend is taking over TikTokers. It involves Tik Tok videos where users appear to be eating their own fingers. Check out details here.
Update (January 08):
While you may hear a lot about how kids are having crazy fun on apps like TikTok, Clip, and Kwai, investigations find these apps are also making them vulnerable and opening doors to exploitation. For details, check out out latest coverage here.
Original story follows:
It won’t be wrong to say the Tik Tok app – which lets you create short, 15 second lip-syncing videos – has taken the app world (teen app world at least) by storm. The app topped the Apple App Store charts earlier this year, and has been growing strength to strength since then.
The following Google Trends graph should give a good idea about how Google searches for the Tik Tok app – which is from a Chinese company – has skyrocketed in the second half of this year in the US.
In case you are new to the app, and want to know why it is so popular, check out our collection of some of the most hilarious/sweet Tik Tok videos that we handpicked for you to enjoy this Christmas/holiday season.
Also, don’t miss the Tik Tok ‘hit or miss’ (#tiktoktest) trend that has taken social media by storm.
Sadly, regardless of how popular and fun Tik Tok is, there have already been many serious concerns raised over the app.
In our recent coverage, we curated news reports from around the world that not only reveal the presence of hateful, neo-Nazi and white supremacist stuff on the app, but also how kids/teens using the app can potentially fall prey to sexual predators or pedophiles.
Even Indonesia had banned Tik Tok for inappropriate content. Check out that complete story by heading here.
Excessive advertising
And now, we stumbled upon a new kind of annoyance that Tik Tok is creating, even for those who are not on the app. It’s not as serious as some of the other problems we’ve highlighted so far, but yeah, given the volume of complaints, it’s worth highlighting.
A very large number of people are complaining about the frequency of ads they are seeing on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat. Take a look:
https://twitter.com/angelabatres_/status/1078539664510701569
https://twitter.com/Juice_Cano/status/1078539242534449152
https://twitter.com/systunknown/status/1078536570028937218
https://twitter.com/McNastyOfficial/status/1078525134179164161
https://twitter.com/_tortor/status/1078526407775608832
https://twitter.com/JoeyAoraha1/status/1078523290916974592
https://twitter.com/LexiPorvin/status/1078519914019774464
https://twitter.com/SevenOfRhyme/status/1078503920316661761
The list is practically endless. Head here to see more of these complaints.
Some people say they’ll file complaint against this over-advertising campaign, while some have already complained to YouTube about this multiple times.
https://twitter.com/layla200x/status/1078234999642443776
https://twitter.com/k_piscesss/status/1078511802634379264
https://twitter.com/kidcollink/status/1078505474302099457
https://twitter.com/DannyAllenUK/status/1078421460245467136
Apparently, Tik Tok is trying to reap the most out of its current popularity and the holiday season. Not only social media platforms, users from many regions say they have also seen ads for the app on TV.
https://twitter.com/bhyxcysh/status/1073554787629621250
https://twitter.com/fernspml/status/1078322099339485184
https://twitter.com/cutiepiehyuck/status/1077398124870672385
https://twitter.com/krookiek/status/1076989444157132800
While advertising campaigns are good, excessive advertising may hurt businesses. Given the kind of user comments we’re seeing about Tik Tok ads, we hope ByteDance (Tik Tok’s parent company) goes slow on the app’s advertising.
PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.
Himanshu Arora
359 Posts
My interest in technology and writing started back in 2010. Since then, I have written for many leading publications, including Computerworld, GSMArena, TechSpot, HowtoForge, LinuxJournal, and MakeTechEasier to name a few. Here at PiunikaWeb, I started with covering smartphone related breaking stories as well as some other interesting stuff, but now I have switched over to more of a leadership role. I also take care of several operational aspects of the website. Some of my current responsibilities include business development, and working with Piunika to make sure we’re progressing as envisioned. If you want to get in touch, I am active on LinkedIN, and also available on Twitter/X.
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