Sun 19 June 2022:
As Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attempts to make Facebook and Instagram more like TikTok, TikTok has stressed that it is not interested in replicating Facebook because it is not a social network but an entertainment platform.
Facebook, according to Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s head of global business solutions, is a social platform.
“They’ve built all their algorithms based on the social graph. That is their core competency. Ours is not,” Chandlee was quoted as saying.
“We are an entertainment platform. The difference is significant. It’s a massive difference,” he added.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance and is gaining popularity among teenagers all over the world, is owned by China’s ByteDance.
Instagram, which is owned by Meta, is developing a new full-screen option for its feed as well as an altered navigation bar in order to compete with TikTok.
The test, which has been rolled out to “a limited number of people” according to Meta spokesperson Seine Kim, is the latest effort from the platform to compete with TikTok when it comes to social video.
Facebook employees have reportedly been directed by the senior executives to change the platform’s algorithms to make it more like its arch Chinese rival TikTok that is gaining immense popularity among the teenagers.
The other directive to employees is that years after Messenger and Facebook split up as separate apps, the two will be brought back together, mimicking TikTok’s messaging functionality.
The company recognizes that their Reels short-form video platform is insufficient to compete with TikTok.
TikTok users are spending more time than ever before on the platform.
Algorithm more like TikTok
According to The Verge, executives at Meta have been closely tracking TikTok and had grown worried about the possibility that Facebook wasn’t doing enough to compete. TikTok continues to grow in markets such as the US, and has gained tremendous popularity among teen users.
So executives at Facebook are rethinking the feed entirely. For users, this means get ready to be flooded by more Reels, even from those who you don’t follow. This is similar to how Facebook began copying Snapchat as the latter started growing rapidly but the stakes could be even higher this time.
In February, Meta had announced that Facebook’s global daily active users declined from the previous quarter for the first time. The company posted weaker-than-expected forecasts at the time, blaming Apple’s privacy changes and increased competition from rivals including TikTok. This sent the social media giant’s shares plunging by almost 20 per cent.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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