Video-sharing software, TikTok, has looked away from its fastest-rising market, Africa, donating instead to the United Kingdom to support its coronavirus fight.
And the Chinese-owned app may ultimately lose foothold on the world’s youngest continent which flaunts some of the leading global pop culture movers across music and film after dishing out £5 million to frontline health workers in the UK.
Since penetrating Africa in 2018, Tiktok has become the ninth most-used social media app ahead of LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat, raising question over its preference for Britain.
However with UK’s alarming surge in the coronavirus pandemic – almost 110,000 positive cases and nearly 15,000 deaths – Tiktok’s donation may be justified.
In contrast, a little over 18,000 persons have tested positive in Africa with less than 1,000 fatalities.
Tiktok said the donation would help with emergency funding for frontline workers, including practical and psychological support to nurses, midwives, healthcare support workers, paramedics, physiotherapists, cleaners and porters during and after the pandemic.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “The whole country has been overwhelmed by the dedication and professionalism of all of our health and social care heroes battling against this global pandemic.
“I know the extraordinary pressures this virus has brought to professional and private lives, and I’m delighted that TikTok is supporting the RCN Foundation, which brings so much support to so many.’
According to the video platform, more than 200,000 £ThankYouNHS videos have been published on TikTok, as well as some 4,000 £ClapForOurCarers videos.
Rich Waterworth, TikTok’s UK general manager, said: “The courageous work of those on the front line of our healthcare system is both poignant and inspiring, and I hope our donation to the Covid-19 Healthcare Support Appeal, established by the RCN Foundation, can go some way in alleviating just some of the pressures many of these workers are dealing with at this time.
“I would like to personally thank them for the work they are doing in these unprecedented times.
“Despite the huge challenges frontline healthcare workers face on a daily basis, I have been enormously heartened by what we are seeing on our platform.
“Not only have we seen the TikTok community show their thanks and appreciation for the healthcare workers in their masses through some amazing videos, we’re also seeing the workers themselves use the platform for some light relief.
“We have seen so many of them take to TikTok in their breaks to add a bit of light relief while at work, which I hope has provided a touch of joy during their difficult days.”
This story of one-sided customer appreciation and disregard for Africans on the part of TikTok links poorly with the fact that it is the fastest-growing app in Africa and Nigeria after WhatsApp. It is from China which claims to be a friend of Africa and from which country the virus originated in 2019.
African youths, largest being Nigerians, followed by Kenyans and South Africans are the largest African signups. Many of these active users spend millions of hours daily recording and uploading many stunts to keep TikTok afloat.
This precious amount of creative talents and time have even become more available since the COVID-19 lockdowns began across the continent.
Julius Akin, an ICT and online behavioural analyst based in Lagos, commercial capital of Nigeria said that the algorithm and the aggressive enticement and mental entrapment detected after studying the TikTok app, has just been given further validity by the neglect of TikTok of the African users while dotting on Europe.
“it is a regrettable turn of events which is not unusual for Africa to be perceived by international business executives as a fallow continent to exploit in terms of human and natural resources to the benefit of the developed world, which now includes China.
“TikTok is just another merchant ship or slave ship docked at the shores of Africa to capture the minds of African youths through the doors of no return and sail on a voyage of profitless exploitation” , he concluded.
Only time will tell where the relationship between TikTok and Africa goes from here in view of the strong feelings of betrayal felt by a cross-section of active users who bared their minds to kaftanpost on this matter. We have to wait for the timeclock and just listen to its tick-toks.
Here are some random TikTok statistics you need to know:
TikTok has 800 million active users worldwide.
The TikTok app has been downloaded over 1.5 billion times on the App Store and Google Play.
TikTok ranked as the top most downloaded app in Apple’s iOS App Store for Q1 2019, with more than 33 million downloads.
41 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24.
TikTok has been downloaded 467 million times in India – nearly one-third of its total downloads.
When it comes to the daily time spent on TikTok, users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app.
TikTok is available in 155 countries, and in 75 languages.
90 percent of all TikTok users access the app on a daily basis.
In less than 18 months, the number of US adult TikTok users grew 5.5 times.
There was an average number of more than 1 million videos viewed every day in a year.
