After Instagram and Snapchat, the popular platform for teens and young adults, TikTok, added a new feature on Thursday, “TikTok Now,” which takes the BeReal formula with its dual front and rear cameras.
From now on, users of the Chinese app will receive a notification every day at a certain time to capture the time of day.
This method takes the approach of BeReal, an app launched by two French people in 2020 that has seen a surge in popularity in recent months thanks to marketing aimed at spontaneity and regularity. In BeReal, the idea is to take a picture in the pose Photograph And in the horizontal position to transfer to a small circle of close friends.
However, this new feature does not follow the guidelines of the TikTok app, which does not consider itself a social network like Facebook, which is centered around interactions between people who know each other. This new feature comes a few days after the release of a survey start American NewsGuard regarding misinformation posted on the Chinese app.
Fake news is flowing
NewsGuard, an organization created in 2018 to counter disinformation, has An investigation was unveiled on Wednesday The claim that “nearly 20% of videos that appear in search results contain misinformation.”
However, the app says it applied a systemartificial intelligence who scrolls through videos posted on his news feed. TikTok also reminded NewsGuard that its policies “make it clear that we do not allow serious misinformation, including medical misinformation, and that such content will be removed from the platform.”
In the United States, TikTok has been in the crosshairs of many elected officials due to its parent company, the Chinese group ByteDance. They accuse the group of giving the Chinese government access to US user data, which it has always denied.
Claims that raise questions about the impact that TikTok and its competitors could have on disinformation, as well as the mental health of their young audience.
Apps that are racing
According to internet marketing consultant and lecturer Stéphanie Ouellette, this new feature is not surprising. “We see it, Instagram is trying to become TikTok and everyone wants to take other people’s features. It becomes a race on the social network that will be used the most, so the features that are popular with others will be taken over by their competitor.”
Last July, Instagram introduced its users to the “Dual” feature, which copies BeReal’s idea of simultaneously taking photos with the front and back lenses of the phone.
A marketing trend unlikely to abate, according to MI Ouellette, as jobs are only thriving so these social networks can keep their users close at hand.