Instagram has largely replaced TikTok in India
restofworld.org
restofworld.org
A similar problem about the platforms themselves: the article mentions that a number of local Indian TikTok-lookalike platforms have been created, but none of them was able to get even a fraction of TikTok popularity.
That said, I was pleased to learn about Savitri and Sanatan Mahto, and enjoyed a few of their videos (on Youtube, ironically).
So all in all one does not have to be slick fuck to be on TikTok and thats reason of popularity.
Tiktok on the other hand promoted your video to other users on the platform regardless of these 'requirements' and as a result those from poor/marginalized communities had the opportunity go viral and gain followers as well - without investment in the polish necessary to gain the same visibility on instagram. This polish could be in the form of better phones(cameras), better clothing or better backgrounds/scenes.
I think they used that concept as a basis for their algorithms later, and just changing the recommendation algorithms changes the feel of the entire platform.
> But rather than court the same creators who had driven the Chinese company’s success, Facebook, Reels’ owner, kick-started its launch campaign by courting a set of influencers from upper-class backgrounds, including Komal Pandey, Kusha Kapila, and Ammy Virk: “A catalog of aspiring lifestyle [examples] for middle-class and upper-middle-class Indians,” was how Dr. Rahul Advani, a research fellow at the University College London, described the launch to Rest of World.
Facebook didn't know about popular tiktokers like the Mahtos, didn't care, or knew full well and specifically wanted to cater "rich lifestyle" content because it's better for selling ads, especially ads for expensive, high-profit-margin stuff.
Sure, there are many wealthy individuals whobare from upper castes.
There are also equally wealthy people from castes across the spectrum.
Influencers are basically rich, urban, 90s gen people. Some of them are from upper castes, some are not.
>specifically wanted to cater "rich lifestyle" content because it's better for selling ads, especially ads for expensive, high-profit-margin stuff
They don't have to choose between rich and poor audiences for ads. They have more than enough resources to push targeted ads to all kinds of demographics. They have no pragmatic advantage in filtering content for "lifestyle", since every individual user anyway has his own customized feed attuned to his interests. Even if they wanted to only cater to the rich, they won't gain much by cutting down on "poor" content that won't show up on their feed anyway.
While foreigners may confuse between caste and class, everyone in India knows that there is a high co-relation between caste and class (mobility), and that invariably higher castes are higher on the class hierarchy, among Hindus (the majority population in India). The rigidness of the caste hierarchy that prevented mobility in it (rising up in the caste), has had a modern spillover effect on India's class system too. Many caste supremacist believe that class equality is an attack on the caste system, and thus use this reasoning as a basis to attack the economic and consumerist aspirations of the lower caste.
E.g. Incidents of attack by upper castes on lower caste Hindus when they try to imitate Bollywood types wedding to highlight their better social status:
> “They told us that we had to take birth as upper caste people if we wanted to ride a horse. I pleaded with them that Aakash is an orphan and they allow the marriage procession to pass off peacefully, but they did not budge from their stand,” Khema told Gadh police in the complaint.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/dalit-groom-...
There are many other such examples, where a lower caste is prevented from enjoying the benefits his economic class can afford him, by his castiest upper caste brethren.
And they are not the same, however close and correlated you may feel they are.
People move on and these kids have to feed themselves.
There's a huge Venture Capital bubble forming in India right now thanks to, among others, Andreesen Horowitz. Those guys have seemingly bottomless pits of money to throw at startups like Clubhouse and in India have gone and created Unicorns out of thin air on paper only.
The big money fight in India post the TikTok ban is what helped IG. Lots of upstarts running expensive advertisements on Television and getting brand endorsements, while the big, established networks in the Facebook family silently boosted content similar to the trash you find on TikTok through FB stories and Facebook stories on placements on top of feed/message inbox, upsells in feed etc
IG is far from winning the space. The competition is simply in disarray from trying to figure out branding and the "cool" factor that TikTok had.
http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counter-Anti-Disintermediation
It's gonna be a feast for the national oligarchy and an absolute disaster for consumers.
And also one thing to add regarding foreign social media. If you think that your citizens are so fundamentally gullible and illiterate that they're going to be brainwashed by a platform like tiktok and that domestic politicians need to spoonfeed them news you've already abandoned any faith in the basis for democracy to begin with.
Is there more to this than the chicken tax preventing imported trucks?
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_motorcycle_tariff
[2]https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-28-mn-698-st...
But is it really "International competition" if China has more restrictions on foreign companies?
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/american-chamber-of-commerce...
The problem is that these two tech might be used for propaganda and espionage.
There's also a question of intellectual property violations. Pretty sure taking a closer look at current Huawei products might reveal some interesting reverse engineering. It sure did back in the days where dumped firmware still had Cisco copyrights...
Even the possibility of an option for a person to pick on their own is a threat to market dominance. And we all know how well inertia works.
As for propaganda and espionage... what isn't used it for it these days?
It is the protocols and open standards that we should be focusing on, not the platforms.
With that said, web3 endorsed activity pub, I would like to see more websites take advantage of that, I'd love to be able to comment on hackernews via my mastodon account, for example.
This ship has sailed everywhere: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. echo chambers... You only need to look at a country like China where they have the political power to force control and think why they care SO much about it. It matters.
Algorithms are getting increasingly better. Media is becoming more immersive.
But, if you are actually successful, it's grind like any job. The ones who manage to monetize have to create content every single day or watch their numbers start to drop.
Your actual job is silly, but entertaining to a large number of people. Consequently, there's a lot of money available. Consequently, the industry selects for peak performance.
It's easy to look in from the outside and say "Wow! They're getting paid that much because they're that good."
But in reality it's that (total available money in the endeavor) determines (relative competition vs other industries) determines (absolute effort of top performers, to be top performers).
... that said, "erased working class creators" is objectively a ridiculous turn of phrase.
book reviewers, fashion critics, the people who decide which products get premium placement in store selves.. those people all used to control the machinery of influence. Now its in the open.
I think we'll get better at this over time but to me its a far more transparent system than we had in the past.
The internet has permitted individuals to become famous completely independently for the first time ever. And famous people and advertising is an age old relationship. Really all there is to it.
I imagine some people found slapstick comedians from silent movie era to be poor form of expression compared to drama or comedy plays, live performances to recorded music or very recently Megan thee stallion's performance or whatever.
Every type of performance art has its own value and target audience, one form is not superior to another. [2]
In the context of the article's premise that last point is important. Indian art is filled with great content, however dominantly portrayed both within and externally are the traditionally upper caste forms (Carnatic music/Bhartanatyam etc) in public discourse. Historically it is projected to be superior/ culturally better etc. There is lot of folk and regional traditions which have not had the same patronage, while things are changing over the years more artists and art from such forms are getting better recognition non classical instruments get more limelight, the history of that is deeply linked to Indian caste system and social struggles.
The author's premise[1] is that TikTok was a better medium than Instagram for that expression and that is now lost. He indirectly is saying Modi's government ( an upper caste right wing nationalist government) was not just banning a Chinese app but an important avenue of expression for marginalized communities.
[1] I don't follow either platform to have an opinion on whether this is true.
[2] The discussion on whether any art is valuable or useful is different kind of discussion I am not getting into, the premise here is if some art is valuable , just because we don't like some other form shouldn't make it less valuable
Job security is shit though. Among other trappings, like a cancel mob.