As its future hangs in the stability, TikTookay tries to keep advertisers on its side

Call it injury management. 

And there’s quite a bit to management. Some 16 myths, to be exact. All of them are featured under in the doc TikTookay advert execs have been sharing with entrepreneurs following the congressional listening to. 

For these readers who’re quick on time, right here’s the cliffsnotes: 

• Ownership 

There have lengthy been issues about TikTookay’s possession – particularly that ByteDance is a Chinese firm, and that firm has ties to the Chinese Government. TikTookay states that whereas ByteDance was certainly based by Chinese entrepreneurs, round 60% of it’s owned by institutional buyers: Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group – so it’s predominantly a personal equity-backed enterprise these days. And let’s not overlook its five-strong board; three out of 5 of that are U.S. primarily based, with the remaining two residing in Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively.

• Ties to Chinese Government

It’s well-known that to function information and knowledge merchandise inside mainland China, media licenses are required, and the Chinese Government will legally personal 1% of these entities. But TikTookay doesn’t function in mainland China, solely its Chinese counterpart Douyin does, so these guidelines don’t apply.

• Content 

TikTookay has all the time positioned itself as an leisure app, that means the content material is predominantly UGC — not content material created by the Chinese Government. And on condition that TikTookay can’t be accessed in China, it is sensible that the app’s content material moderation takes place elsewhere, by the platform’s U.S. and Ireland Trust and Safety groups, which oversee the content material for the US and Europe, respectively.

• Data use (or abuse)

Since Trump’s loud name to ban the app again in 2020, TikTookay has touted Project Texas as its means of appeasing issues about how consumer information is managed. And even at the listening to, Project Texas was used as a response to reply quite a few repeated questions from Congress. But since June 2022, 100% of U.S. information has been routed to Oracle and USDU infrastructure, which is managed by, you guessed it, Americans, in the U.S..

• Surveillance 

There’s an ongoing narrative that the app has the functionality to spy on U.S. residents. This was made clear when it was introduced final month that the FBI and DOJ are investigating ByteDance’s use of TikTookay to spy on Forbes’ journalists.

Here’s a replica of the full myth-buster doc:

The undeniable fact that such a doc exists says all the things there may be to find out about the place TikTookay’s priorities at the moment are: distancing itself from Beijing authorities. To be truthful, this isn’t the first time these ties have dominated the political and cultural discourse. Back in 2020, former president Donald Trump ordered the ban of latest downloads of the app in the U.S. 

This time, nonetheless, it’s totally different. 

Marketers are warier than ever of the geopolitical points round TikTookay. Should they act on these issues and begin pulling advert {dollars} from the app then it may compound what’s already a really precarious state of affairs. To be clear, this isn’t a direct risk. Most entrepreneurs who spoke to Digiday have mentioned they intend to keep promoting on the app. That mentioned, mud sticks. So a lot in order that those self same entrepreneurs are conserving a watchful eye and are prepared to adapt their methods and budgets, ought to the state of affairs change at any level. 

Little marvel then why TikTookay execs are taking steps to try to change the narrative round the enterprise. 

“The concerns we’ve heard from a handful of clients that aren’t on TikTok yet are more around not wanting to invest in the platform if it’s going to get banned,” mentioned Adam Telian, vp of media providers at New Engen. 

Whatever occurs subsequent, TikTookay’s advert execs are going to be doing greater than debunking myths over the coming weeks. Marketers will demand it. After all, they’ve loads of unanswered questions that neither the congressional listening to, the Transparency and Accountability Center or Project Texas have been in a position to handle. 

“It’s been three years since these concerns were initially raised,” mentioned Kaela Green, vp paid social at Basis Technologies. “How long does it take? TikTok’s CEO said that they’ve spent about $1.5 billion on these efforts, that the data will be protected in this way — but why is it not [protected] right now? Why has it been deprioritized? Why aren’t we in a place where we can very confidently speak to it yet?”

More and extra entrepreneurs are beginning to concur. Indeed, sentiment from them towards TikTookay is slowly beginning  to shift. 

“If confidence in TikTok’s longevity is continuously undermined, brands and creators are going to start using other platforms with more frequency,” mentioned Jess Phillips, founder and CEO of The Social Standard. “It’s a simple hedge that will be necessary.”

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