A day ago, Dr S Ramadoss, the founder of Pattali Makkal Katchi urged the government of Tamil Nadu to ban the TikTok App. He said that the app was leading to social disasters, especially among the youth. "The computer and network surveillance agency of US has recommended that a ban should be implemented on the app for users below 16 years. The app’s contents are being strictly monitored in France and other countries. The future of the youth would be severely affected if their attention is diverted by such apps. In order to prevent such kind of attention diversion, the said app should be monitored and checked. Hence, the Government should take steps to impose a ban on the app,” he urged.
So why is TikTok a big deal? Let's break it down.
Launched in September 2016, TikTok is a social media app for creating and sharing videos as well as live broadcasting, which is popular especially for small videos. Especially after the app merged with musical.ly earlier in 2018, the app's target crowd tremendously grew, as more youngsters (especially teenagers) got to upload lip sync (dubsmash like) videos there. The app today has more than 150 million active users and the number of subscribers is more than thrice the former.
Last year, TikTok, was the most downloaded iPhone app worldwide, totalling 45.8 million and surpassing Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, according to the American research company Sensor Tower.
Why is TikTok so popular? After all, you already have YouTube, Facebook Videos and Instagram TV.
To begin with, Tik Tok allows its users a variety of options from thousands of songs (and movie/sitcom dialogues) and a large number of tools to personalise their videos. This includes stickers, filters and speed control options.
The interface makes it easier for the users to create videos and also check out the others' creation and like/comment on them. Also, you needn't necessarily have an account here to like a video. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that a lot of young people, especially teenagers have attained social media stardom by merely putting up lipsync videos.
Therefore, it is not illogical to completely disregard the worry that many have about the other popular social media platforms. In July 2018, Indonesia banned the app in the country raising concerns about the platform allegedly spreading pornographic and blasphemous content. A week later, it was unblocked with a few changes including the removal of negative content, opening a government liaison office and implementing age restrictions and security mechanisms.
Exploring the problems with the app, brought us to a Quora thread, where a user who calls it "an excellent platform to show creativity to the world," says that the app sets unrealistic examples to youngsters, who are seeking popularity by wasting a lot of time making videos. Another user says, "It isn’t a safe place at all, with about 80 million registered users, out of whom, many are just lusty paedophiles, looking for an easy target."
Now, if you have some spare time, look up at Quora for the questions related to the topic TikTok and you'll be surprised to see the number of questions on the lines of 'How to make more money using TikTok?'.
Bottom line, everything has its own pros and cons, and in the big bad world of the internet, always put safety first.
