Everything happens Zuck – again. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will most likely be the ultimate winner in the latest attempt to force the sale or ban of TikTok, a Chinese company.
The House passed a “ban” or forced sale of TikTok as part of a bill on military aid to Ukraine and Israel. Even if President Joe Biden signs the bill, he’ll likely face a court battle, so you probably won’t have to worry about TikTok disappearing from your phone any time soon.
But almost all of the results here are, at least initially, good news for Zuckerberg’s Meta-owned Instagram Reels and Alphabet-owned YouTube Shorts — TikTok’s main competitors.
We know that Meta has been working to amplify concerns about TikTok since at least 2022, when she paid a Republican consulting firm to create an influencer campaign aimed at exacerbating fears that TikTok would be bad for children and teenagers. A year ago, BI’s Grace Kay wrote that the TikTok legislation would be like “an early Christmas present” for Zuckerberg.
If TikTok, for whatever reason, could no longer work in the United States, that would leave a lot of eyeballs up for grabs — and people would simply change their habits to watch videos on another app. (And to some extent, they already have – Reels has actually gotten good and popular lately, after being a lousy backwater to begin with. Instagram saw more growth and downloads last year than TikTok , and after Instagram faced an existential crisis, it’s making a surprising comeback.)
Creators, many of whom already publish on these other platforms, will also adapt. This way, YouTube could come out ahead: the way YouTube pays creators through a direct split of ad revenue is more creator-friendly than Instagram, where the algorithm and payouts are more mercurial. (Just look at how much time Instagram head Adam Mosseri spends at Threads handling customer service for disgruntled creators.)
Yet while Instagram and YouTube would certainly benefit from attracting more users and attention if TikTok no longer existed, there’s also a potentially not-so-rosy side for Meta and Alphabet: Big tech companies might not be enthusiastic about the adoption by the government of very restrictive legislation. on how a social media business can work.
If ByteDance ends up selling TikTok to an American company, it’s hard to imagine that the transition will be smooth. For one thing, it’s unclear whether ByteDance will allow TikTok’s algorithm — what makes it so good in the first place — to be included in the sale.
This means you could find yourself in a situation where former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was trying to create his own algorithm for a US-owned TikTok, which…good luck, buddy! I imagine Zuck would be happy with this result.
Maybe Hot Zuck Summer is heating up again!
businessinsider
