The short videos and musical apps are attracting palpable attention now more than ever since the relaunch of the famous app TikTok that managed to create a users base of millions of people from all over the world. TikTok is considered to be one of the most popular Chinese apps and it operates in multiple countries with huge fan bases. However, despite its notoriety and different representation of the enjoyable social media experience for the younger generation, the musical app has been facing a couple of serious issues over the last few months. For example the sudden appearance of a graphic suicidal video on the TikTok community in the past weeks created a state of anger and apprehension amongst the users who were disappointed in the app after not taking down the distressing content fast enough.
TikTok has been in the spotlight for quite some time now since the app is facing an imminent ban in the United States after the Trump administration deemed it unsuitable for operating in the country anymore. Now the Chinese TikTok has two options: the app can either end its massive business in the US and leave the country, or it can sell the successful business to other brands or companies interested in purchasing the assets of TikTok. Reportedly TikTok received a $20 billion offer to sell its business in the States. There are apparently big names and brands interested in the American business of TikTok including Walmart, Oracle, Triller, Twitter, Netflix and Microsoft. The Triller app did in fact confirm that an offer was presented to Bytedance – the company owning TikTok – to purchase the app’s business before it leaves the US.
The chairman of Triller said that they are directly approaching the Bytedance company and its chairman, and there is no offer presented to TikTok directly. The fact that TikTok is soon to leave the United States raises the question of what will the fan base of the app do in the future? The answer is that there are actually other short videos apps and platforms coming forward to take the place of TikTok in the American market. Apps like Triller and Instagram Reels are amongst the top alternatives at the moment; Triller has seen a rapid surge in the number of monthly downloads during the last two months. There is also the interesting platform of Centricus that’s been rumored to be interested in purchasing TikTok business in America. TikTok has unfortunately seen a downtime lately in some communities which only adds to the overall dilemma facing the app over content control and privacy compromising issues.
