TikTok avoids political storms in booming Southeast Asia as US troubles mount

The app’s Chinese owner ByteDance polices content in accordance with local laws as it jostles with Facebook, Google for dominance in the region

With growth has come increased government scrutiny and influencers like Sandy Saputra say it would be so disappointing if TikTok was erased from Indonesia

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Indonesian TikTok star Sandy Saputra. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:55pm, 28 Aug 2020Updated: 8:36pm, 28 Aug 2020

At 19, Sandy Saputra is big on TikTok Indonesia. Within a year, he is leapt from quiet, small-town life to star influencer status as more than 10.5 million followers lap up his toothy grin in dancing, pranking and lip-synching videos on the booming app.

Sandy’s success, becoming his family’s main breadwinner as global brands like Coca Cola or Suntory pay to have their names on his lighthearted clips, comes as TikTok mushrooms across Southeast Asia. Data trackers show it’s been downloaded hundreds of millions of times already in a region with a collective population of 630 million – half of them under 30.

But it also comes as concerns over how secure user data is in the hands of its Chinese owner ByteDance summon big storm clouds elsewhere – TikTok has been banned in India and President Donald Trump has ordered ByteDance to sell its US operations, triggering the resignation on Thursday of only recently installed CEO Kevin Mayer.

Southeast Asia offers a clear view of the global strategy ByteDance is implementing to avoid crackdowns in other regions that influencers like Saputra now fear. The approach is to launch ‘non-political’ products fast, promising to governments in places like Vietnam that content will be tightly policed in accordance with local laws, according to interviews with a dozen current and former employees.

The region is now key to the future of TikTok and ByteDance: The Chinese firm is already plugging TikTok as part of a suite of interconnected apps for live video streaming, messaging and music, tackling US behemoths Facebook and Google head on as both pour billions into Southeast Asia.

ByteDance declined to comment for this article, and it’s unclear whether or how the prospective sale of operations in the United States and elsewhere might effect Southeast Asia. But in his base in Sukabumi, West Java province, Saputra is only too aware of risks.

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