TikTok: we’ve just created another monster
The news about social networks, particularly among young people, is deeply worrying: Facebook is in rapid decline now that its owner is focused on monopolizing the metaverse and virtual reality while failing to understand the implications of his actions, and in turn facilitating the emergence of another monster.
That monster is none other than China’s ByteDance, and its creation, TikTok: more than a billion active users now spend more than an hour and a half a day on the platform, much more time than they do watching television. Its popularity is breaking all records, surpassing Facebook in influencer marketing and soon YouTube. A generation uses it as its compass and search engine.
The company now has expansion plans of all kinds: from music, by competing with Spotify or Apple Music; to e-commerce, with the idea of setting up an international network of physical stores and taking on Amazon; as well as selling tickets for movies, concerts or shows.
Facebook has turned out to be a monster with no sense of responsibility that has gotten it involved in all kinds of barbarities, from electoral fraud to genocides; but TikTok has already proven, in its short history, to be much worse. This is a platform that lies about its security problems, has been fined for illegally using minors’ data, whose algorithm systematically…
