San Francisco, June 18: TikTok has clarified that it is not interested in copying Facebook as it is not a social network but an entertainment platform, as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks to make Facebook and Instagram to be more like TikTok.
Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s president of global business solutions, told CNBC that Facebook is a social platform.
“They’ve built all their algorithms based on the social graph. That is their core competency. Ours is not,” Chandlee was quoted as saying.
“We are an entertainment platform. The difference is significant. It’s a massive difference,” he added.
TikTok is owned by China’s ByteDance, as is gaining popularity among teens all over the world.
To take on TikTok, Meta-owned Instagram is testing out a new full-screen mode for its feed and an updated navigation bar.
The test, which has been rolled out to “a limited number of people” according to Meta spokesperson Seine Kim, is the latest effort from the platform to compete with TikTok when it comes to social video.
Facebook employees have reportedly been directed by the senior executives to change the platform’s algorithms to make it more like its arch Chinese rival TikTok that is gaining immense popularity among the teenagers.
The other directive to employees is that years after Messenger and Facebook split up as separate apps, the two will be brought back together, mimicking TikTok’s messaging functionality.
The company realises that its short-form video platform Reels is not enough to threaten TikTok.
TikTok users are spending more time on the app than ever before.
