TikTok star Charli D’Amelio hedges bets by joining Triller

The American app is dangling equity and official titles for TikTok creators willing to tell their followers that they are moving to Triller – they can keep posting on both platforms as long as they have a bigger presence on Triller, according to a New York Times report this month.

Influencers that have taken up the offer include Josh Richards, an 18-year-old TikTok star who joined in July as Triller’s chief strategy officer, as well as 21-year-old Griffin Johnson and 19-year-old Noah Beck who both joined as advisers with equity.

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Pakistan bans TikTok over ‘immoral and indecent’ videos

Pakistan bans TikTok over ‘immoral and indecent’ videos

Triller also recently hired TikTok’s director of music content and artist partnerships Mary Rahmani as its new global head of partnerships.

The app is exploring a deal to go public through a shell company and has secured US$100 million in funding at a valuation of US$1.25 billion, according to a Reuters report last Monday.

Anis Uzzaman, General Partner and CEO at Pegasus Tech Ventures that invested in Triller earlier this year, said he expects that the company will hit unicorn status in its next round of funding. “They are growing exponentially and deserve this,” he told the Post.

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“The young generation Z has nothing against TikTok or China,” Uzzaman said. But he added that many content creators are looking at switching platforms because of the uncertainty hanging over TikTok’s fate, even if the threatened ban has not yet materialised.

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Oracle reaches deal to become TikTok’s ‘technology partner’, after Microsoft offer is rejected

Oracle reaches deal to become TikTok’s ‘technology partner’, after Microsoft offer is rejected

TikTok has warned that the restrictions would effectively ban the app’s use in the US, resulting in “irreparable harm” to the company.

Using data from a two-week ban on the app in India last year, TikTok projected that 40 to 50 per cent of its daily active users in the US would leave the app and not return if it is banned for two months in the country. If it is banned for six months, 80 to 90 per cent of its daily active users would leave and not return to the app, the company said in a court filing.

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Other successful short-form video apps such as Likee and Triller could benefit from a TikTok ban, said Adam Blacker, vice-president of insights and global alliances at analytics firm Apptopia.

“If there is a ban, obviously they will start to gain market share on a daily basis,” he said. This, however, will not happen “overnight” as TikTok will still be available for the tens of millions of US users who already have it on their phone,” Blacker added.

But for some TikTok content creators, the community is irreplaceable.

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Viral Indian TikTok star says followers ‘can’t stop crying’ due to Indian government ban

Viral Indian TikTok star says followers ‘can’t stop crying’ due to Indian government ban

Lynn Davis, better known by her TikTok handle “cookingwithlynja”, has 1.8 million followers on the short video app, where she shot to fame after posting a series of 30 daily cooking videos with her son.

Davis, who also has 104,000 followers on Instagram, said she has tried other platforms such as Triller, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts but still prefers TikTok.

“So far they haven’t been able to reach the quality of TikTok mostly due to the lower amount of users using the features, weak community in these particular avenues,” she said.

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“I was disappointed when rumours about the TikTok ban started because the reasons for the ban, I felt, were unfounded and would mean the end to a social media platform that encourages amazing creativity,” said Davis.

“A huge number of people don’t use these other platforms,” Geet told the Post in a video interview. “I had about 11 million followers across my three channels on [TikTok] in total, and probably less than 10,000 people, even less than that followed me on other platforms,” said the former lawyer, who was raised in Seattle but moved to New Delhi five years ago to start an NGO helping children who live in slums.

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India’s TikTok ban closes lucrative window to the world for many rural women

India’s TikTok ban closes lucrative window to the world for many rural women

“I don‘t think any other platform compares to TikTok, the organic reach that TikTok gave and also the community that TikTok had built on the app,” she added.

The loss of TikTok as a platform has cost Geet connections with her millions of followers, she said, comparing this to the connections she lost with some of the children she worked with when the government evicted them from their tents in slums.

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“It‘s sad … you work really hard to connect with people, to make a relationship with people. And all of the sudden, you have no way of contacting them, you have no way of reaching them and it’s definitely hard. You miss them.”

But if India’s ban is not lifted, other apps will have a better chance of developing their user communities, according to Meenakshi Tiwari, an independent technology analyst based in New Delhi.

“[TikTok’s] audiences [in India] were in the lower tier-cities or towns, where they do not use Instagram so much,” Tiwari said.

Geet, who is returning to the US to be with her family in the pandemic, now faces uncertainty both about whether TikTok will ever return to the India market, as well as whether it will soon be banned in the US as well.

“Honestly, I’m hopeful that TikTok really is not doing anything wrong. And as a lawyer, I believe in the justice system,” she said.