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Short-form video platform TikTok has taken over as the major online advertising platform in the U.S.
The video-focused social network’s massive growth has seen it displace the two dominant ads platform, Google and Meta (Facebook) in the U.S. online advertising market to become the most preferred app to run ads.
In the U.S., Google and Meta (Facebook) accounted for a combined 48.4% of U.S. digital ad spending in 2022, while TikTok annual revenue from ads in 2022 saw a whopping 200% increase from the previous year.
In 2021, it generated $4 billion in advertising revenue and analysts have predicted that its ad revenue will increase by 55% in 2023.
The platform is booming with more than 1 billion users, as it is currently changing the course of marketing with its exceptional features, which has seen it become the most preferred platform for brands to run ads.
One notable thing that sets TikTok apart from other platforms in the online advertising market is that it provides marketers with a level playing field when it comes to reach and engagement.
Unlike other platforms, TikTok’s unique algorithm gives every video an equal chance to go viral, regardless of the number of followers or how popular the content creator is.
Its dominance in the ads market doesn’t come as a surprise, as it has gone ahead to assist brands with ad creation on its platform.
Last year, it launched a “creative center”, which is designed to help advertisers understand what is working on the platform in real time.
With the creative center, brands can explore a showcase of the top-performing ads, view details on the latest platform trends, and search through TikTok’s audio library to help inspire their creative needs.
Recall that TikTok was the most downloaded app in 2021, with 656 million downloads and eight new users every second.
Initially launched for the Chinese market under the name Douyin in 2016, the app has become a global sensation amassing millions of users every year.
It should be recalled that in January 2022, Investors King reported that TikTok was named the world’s fastest-growing brand by Brand Finance Global 500 2022 report.
With a whopping 215 percent growth rate in brand value, the app firmly stands among the most valuable media entertainment brands worldwide, valued at $50 billion.
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Days after the United States ban TikTok, members of the United States congress have disclosed plans to regulate more social media companies this year.
According to the lawmakers, the Chinese-owned short video social media mobile application is structured in a way that it gives vital information about U.S. users to a foreign government.
Also, the policymakers noted that the newly acquired Twitter and YouTube operate similar algorithms to Tiktok, therefore, they need to be regulated to protect U.S citizens.
Meanwhile, a member of the house of Rep. Mike Gallagher in a press interview, proposed that the ban on TikTok should be expanded nationally and not just among representatives. According to him, the app is addictive and destructive.
“It’s highly addictive and destructive, we’re seeing troubling data about the corrosive impact of constant social media use, particularly on young men and women here in America”, he said.
It should be recalled that on December 30, 2022, TikTok was banned from electronic devices managed by the US House of Representatives, citing the high-security risk it poses to users.
Since 2020, the short-form video platform has been negotiating with the US government on a potential deal to resolve the national security threat, urging that the app should remain available to US users.
The social media company has also taken some additional steps to wall off US user data, organizationally and technologically, from other parts of its business.
Unfortunately, an apparent lack of progress in its talks with the US government has led some of its critics, including congress to push for the app to be banned from government devices and potentially more broadly.
Already, local administrations in 19 states in the U.S. have banned TikTok on government issued-devices.
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No less than 10 million Twitter users have voted to force Elon Musk to step down as CEO of the company. The users voted in an opinion poll organised by Musk himself.
On Sunday, the new Twitter owner, Elon Musk asked Twitter users to decide if he should stay in charge of the social media platform after acknowledging he had made a policy mistake that prohibited Twitter users from sharing links to other rival media platforms.
Although the policy has been curtailed, it, however, drew huge negative reactions from the users of the microblogging platform. This is not the first time Twitter users will come hard on Elon Musk. Since the purchase of the social media giant in a deal worth $44 billion, MMusk’sleadership at Twitter has been accompanied with several controversies.
Investors King could recall that Musk had increased Twitter Blue Checkmark from $4 to almost $8 every month. He also embarked on mass layoff, caused by the resignations of some staff of the company.
Similarly, a number of big brands including General Motors, Ford, and Volkswagen among others also stopped paid advertisements on the platform claiming that Musk could open the platform to hate speech.
Musk said on Sunday that he would abide by the results of the poll, but he did not give details on when he would step down if the result said he should.
Before the poll, Tesla Investors lamented that Elon Musk is devoting too much time to Twitter at the expense of his electric motor company.
Tesla shares have already lost nearly 60% of their value this year, as, like other carmakers, it battles supply chain issues and increasing competition in the Electric Vehicle space.
Although Elon Musk has not responded to the poll, observers are however keen on seeing him honouring his pledge. If Musk honours his word, he will have to find a new CEO for the social media company giving him ample time to manage Tesla and his other companies including SpaceX.
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By Amnesty International
Meta must reform its business practices to ensure Facebook’s algorithms do not amplify hatred and fuel ethnic conflict, Amnesty International said today in the wake of a landmark legal action against Meta submitted in Kenya’s High Court.
The legal action claims that Meta promoted speech that led to ethnic violence and killings in Ethiopia by utilizing an algorithm that prioritizes and recommends hateful and violent content on Facebook. The petitioners seek to stop Facebook’s algorithms from recommending such content to Facebook users and compel Meta to create a 200 billion ($1.6 billion USD) victims’ fund. Amnesty International joins six other human rights and legal organizations as interested parties in the case.
“The spread of dangerous content on Facebook lies at the heart of Meta’s pursuit of profit, as its systems are designed to keep people engaged. This legal action is a significant step in holding Meta to account for its harmful business model,” said Flavia Mwangovya, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director of East Africa, Horn, and Great Lakes Region.
One of Amnesty’s staff members in the region was targeted as a result of posts on the social media platform.
“In Ethiopia, the people rely on social media for news and information. Because of the hate and disinformation on Facebook, human rights defenders have also become targets of threats and vitriol. I saw first-hand how the dynamics on Facebook harmed my own human rights work and hope this case will redress the imbalance,” said Fisseha Tekle, legal advisor at Amnesty International.
Fisseha Tekle is one of the petitioners bringing the case, after being subjected to a stream of hateful posts on Facebook for his work exposing human rights violations in Ethiopia. An Ethiopian national, he now lives in Kenya, fears for his life and dare not return to Ethiopia to see his family because of the vitriol directed at him on Facebook.
Fatal failings
The legal action is also being brought by Abraham Meareg, the son of Meareg Amare, a University Professor at Bahir Dar University in northern Ethiopia, who was hunted down and killed in November 2021, weeks after posts inciting hatred and violence against him spread on Facebook. The case claims that Facebook only removed the hateful posts eight days after Professor Meareg’s killing, more than three weeks after his family had first alerted the company.
The Court has been informed that Abraham Meareg fears for his safety and is seeking asylum in the United States. His mother who fled to Addis Ababa is severely traumatized and screams every night in her sleep after witnessing her husband’s killing. The family had their home in Bahir Dar seized by regional police.
The harmful posts targeting Meareg Amare and Fisseha Tekle were not isolated cases. The legal action alleges Facebook is awash with hateful, inciteful and dangerous posts in the context of the Ethiopia conflict.
Meta uses engagement-based algorithmic systems to power Facebook’s news feed, ranking, recommendations and groups features, shaping what is seen on the platform. Meta profits when Facebook users stay on the platform as long as possible, by selling more targeted advertising.
The display of inflammatory content – including that which advocates hatred, constituting incitement to violence, hostility and discrimination – is an effective way of keeping people on the platform longer. As such, the promotion and amplification of this type of content is key to the surveillance-based business model of Facebook.
Internal studies dating back to 2012 indicated that Meta knew its algorithms could result in serious real-world harms. In 2016, Meta’s own research clearly acknowledged that “our recommendation systems grow the problem” of extremism.
In September 2022, Amnesty International documented how Meta’s algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content which incited violence, hatred, and discrimination against the Rohingya in Myanmar and substantially increasing the risk of an outbreak of mass violence.
“From Ethiopia to Myanmar, Meta knew or should have known that its algorithmic systems were fuelling the spread of harmful content leading to serious real-world harms,” said Flavia Mwangovya.
“Meta has shown itself incapable to act to stem this tsunami of hate. Governments need to step up and enforce effective legislation to rein in the surveillance-based business models of tech companies.”
Deadly double standards
The legal action also claims that there is a disparity in Meta’s approach in crisis situations in Africa compared to elsewhere in the world, particularly North America. The company has the capability to implement special adjustments to its algorithms to quickly remove inflammatory content during a crisis. But despite being deployed elsewhere in the world, according to the petitioners none of these adjustments were made during the conflict in Ethiopia, ensuring harmful content continued to proliferate.
Internal Meta documents disclosed by whistle-blower Frances Haugen, known as the Facebook Papers, showed that the US $300 billion company also did not have sufficient content moderators who speak local languages. A report by Meta’s Oversight Board also raised concerns that Meta had not invested sufficient resources in moderating content in languages other than English.
“Meta has failed to adequately invest in content moderation in the Global South, meaning that the spread of hate, violence, and discrimination disproportionally impacts the most marginalized and oppressed communities across the world, and particularly in the Global South.”
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