Should we be worried about the popularity of Chinese apps in the West?
AppFigures’ global ranking of the most downloaded apps on iOS and Android for September leaves very little room for doubt: Chinese companies dominate large areas of the online environment, in large part thanks to techniques borrowed from the US companies that preceded them.
TikTok holds the number one spot. Regular readers will know my views on this social media app that in China disseminates educational, science and history content for young people, but in the West is used to dumb down teenagers with viral content and fake news, and has horrible records regarding its privacy policies. Which is why a number of countries are considering following India’s outright ban; some US states and university campuses have already done so, while many governments around the world have forbidden employees to install it on their official devices.
Based in Beijing and registered in the Cayman Islands, TikTok is a household word around the world, but is only one of ByteDance’s creations. Another is CapCut, downloaded 24 million times in September, in third…
