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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in their study, has claimed that nine companies, including Meta, YouTube, and TikTok, engaged in extensive surveillance of consumers, including minors, collecting and sharing more personal information than most users realised.

The report states that the sites, which mostly offer free services, profited from the data by using it for advertising that targets specific users based on demographics. The companies also failed to adequately protect users, especially children and teenagers.

The FTC said it began its study nearly four years ago to provide the first comprehensive look into the opaque business practices of some of the biggest online platforms that have built multibillion-dollar advertising businesses using consumer data. “Surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identity theft to stalking,” said Lina Kahn, the FTC’s chair, in a statement.

Efforts by the companies to regulate themselves have also failed, the FTC concluded in its report. “Self-regulation has been a failure,” it added.

According to a New York Times report, Google, which owns YouTube, stated, “We have the strictest privacy policy in our industry. We never sell people’s personal information, and we don’t use sensitive information to serve ads,” said José Castañeda, a spokesman for Google. He added, “We prohibit ad personalisation for users under 18, and we don’t personalise ads to anyone watching ‘made for kid content’ on YouTube.”

In December 2020, the agency opened its inquiry into the nine companies that operate 13 platforms. The FTC requested data from each company for operations between 2019 and 2020 and then studied how the companies had collected, used, and retained that data.

The FTC found that the companies voraciously consumed data about users and often purchased information about people who weren’t users through data brokers. They also gathered information from accounts linked to other services.

Most of the companies collected users' age, gender, and the language they spoke. Many platforms also obtained information on education, income, and marital status. The companies didn’t provide users with easy ways to opt out of data collection and often retained sensitive information for much longer than consumers would expect, the agency said.

The companies used data to create profiles of users, often merging the information they gathered with details about habits collected on other sites, to serve targeted advertisements.

The agency also found that many sites claimed they restricted access to users under the age of 13, yet many children remained on the platforms. Teenagers were also treated like adults on many of the apps, subjecting them to the same data collection as adults. Many of the companies couldn’t tell the FTC how much data they were collecting, according to the study.

'Meta, YouTube and TikTok engaged in vast surveillance', says FTC

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It is said that the ugliest sound in the world is the tick tock of a clock because it tells you time is passing, never to come back again. It is the one thing we cannot get more of, or get back.

Mark Zuckerberg would agree. But the relentless TikTok that pains him is that of the eponymous Chinese social media giant. Launched only five years ago, TikTok is one of the world’s fastest-growing social media platforms. Sensor Tower in its “Q1 2022: Store Intelligence Data Digest” reported TikTok as the top app by worldwide downloads in Q1 2022. The app previously had surpassed 3.5 billion all-time downloads in the first quarter of 2021, becoming just the fifth app (and the only one not owned by Meta) to achieve this milestone.

Since the start of 2022, TikTok has been downloaded more than 175 million times. TikTok has surpassed 10 million downloads for the past nine quarters now. No app has had more downloads than TikTok since the beginning of 2018.

This is significant for two reasons: Firstly, this stellar performance has punched the entrenched Silicon Valley social media giants in the nose and they are bleeding. Secondly, TikTok is seen as a danger to those who see the business as an extension of China’s new internet ambitions. It is an indication of the finesse with which China players can deal in such areas. The followership, brand appeal and gush of content has left everyone awe struck.

TikTok might be the easiest social act to be a part of but lurking under the simple interface is bleeding edge Artificial Intelligence which adapts and adopts content at a blinding pace. No wonder TikTok signed up its first 1 billion users double as fast as arch-rival Facebook.

In America, the average TikTok user, on a daily basis, spends 50 percent longer on the app than the typical user spends on Instagram. Powered by such reach and engagement, advertising revenues have surged. TikTok’s revenues are expected to reach $12 billion this year and $23 billion in 2024. Meta has been particularly hard-hit as tech stocks have taken a beating on flattish growth and privacy concerns and the firm is now seen as re-engineering its products to mimic TikTok.

But this success has raised a shrill alarm. There is continued scrutiny and concerns regarding the rise and rise of TikTok. What is the reason for such alarm?

The risk is privacy at minimum and national security at the other end of the danger spectrum. Simply put, China’s regime reserves the right to appropriate data from its companies. No one is exempt. Some have questioned these data concerns arguing that the average social user is unconcerned by privacy and most advertising models are based on companies reading data and usage. By this logic, the advantage of inside access is not new. Data is being analysed by all. How would it matter if it is one company or another?

They see TikTok as a publisher of harmless, even frivolous memes. Can world power be impacted by quirky dance moves?

But TikTok is not slapstick comedy and bad dancing alone. The bigger, material concern emerges with TikTok as an entertainment and news platform. TikTok is a news source for a quarter of all Americans and perhaps most of its youth. This deepens this sense of anxiety. The Chinese government actively meddles in domestic media; TikTok’s content creators are outside China, but the app’s algorithm is within Beijing’s sight. Given an adaptive, personalised feed, manipulation cannot be easily detected.



China knows that social platforms have clout particularly in electoral systems. It recently classified content-recommendation algorithms as a key technology. The commercial implications for TikTok’s competitors are dire. Facebook's entire business is based on tracking users to feed its advertising machine and it is rolling in cash. Last year alone, the company made $40 billion in profit. But the key issue is a growth slowdown. Meta’s market cap dropped $230 billion in one day-the most ever for a publicly traded company- on account of privacy-linked constraints to its model. Apple took a lead in this matter and raised the privacy bar. So, the western tech bloc is hardly an indivisible monolith advancing its interests.

TikTok’s success is not a fluke. The social media app cuts through with relevant trends, unique algorithms and a diverse set of communities for every niche subject matter. Recent updates include interactive add-ons for in-feed ads and its own AR development platform-Effect House. This has made Meta and smaller other players doubt their technical skills as pertinent to where consumers see value.

Despite being banned in India, which has one of the largest markets for app installs in the world, TikTok was ranked third overall in Asia. It was number one on the App Store. Looking at US overall downloads, TikTok has been the top app each quarter since Q1 2021. The last app to beat TikTok was Zoom in Q4 2020. Also, since Q1 2021, TikTok and YouTube have been the top two apps on the US App Store each quarter. TikTok was also the number one app on Google Play for the third quarter in a row, with installs up 19 percent year-over-year.

Starting with the Trump Administration, the United States is keen to box Chinese tech expansion. Be it TikTok or Huawei, they have moved proactively. Brendan Carr, one of the FCC's commissioners, shared - via Twitter - a formal letter written to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in late June. The letter pointed to reports and other developments that made TikTok non-compliant with the two companies' app store policies.

"TikTok is not what it appears to be on the surface. It is not just an app for sharing funny videos or meme. That's the sheep's clothing," he said in the letter. "At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data."

Carr's letter, written on FCC letterhead, said if the Apple and Alphabet do not remove TikTok from their app stores, they should provide statements to explain "the basis for your company's conclusion that the surreptitious access of private and sensitive U.S. user data by persons located in Beijing, coupled with TikTok's pattern of misleading representations and conduct, does not run afoul of any of your app store policies."

On July 16, it was announced that TikTok’s global chief security officer Roland Cloutier, who oversees cyber security, is stepping down from his role. TikTok has been reshuffling its global security team and moving China-specific security issues, including ring fencing it from ByteDance, to more localised teams. It recently announced a dedicated US data security team known as "USDS" as a gatekeeper for US user information, minimising China’s access to data. The company is discussing a structure under which the team would operate autonomously and not be under TikTok’s control or supervision. TikTok, whose leadership is based in the United States and Singapore, is considering rolling out similar data security teams in other regions.

It is estimated that 44 percent of TikTok’s American users are under 25 (compared with 16 percent of Facebook’s). That makes the video app a hugely desirable and influential platform. It is moving beyond User Generated Entertainment Content to shopping and news.

Still, TikTok is but one small corner of a large Chinese strategic canvas. The Chinese are building their own internet, in a potential fragmentation that has been called the “splinternet”, an alternative cyberspace. The Chinese version of cyberspace would be a completely different digital architecture, complete with its own ideological governance and values incompatible with our own. It would herald the beginning of a new cold war-style split, between an ‘open and free’ and ‘controlled and compromised’ internet.

Digital China, like all the country’s national-level strategies in general, is built on Communist Party decisions, objectives, missions, projects, and priority areas of action. ‘New Type Infrastructure’ is one of Digital China’s major missions, one of three focused specifically on developing core technologies. The New Type Infrastructure has three main directions — information infrastructure, integration infrastructure and innovation infrastructure. This is a major mission designed to support national informatization. It overlaps with two key focus areas, mastering core technologies and collecting cyber talent, from one of Digital China’s cornerstone strategies: To be a ‘Cyber Great Power’.

While the technical missions of Digital China are grand, the socioeconomic and geopolitical ambitions of Digital China are imperial in scope. This digital transformation encompasses digital economy, e-government, digital culture, smart society, and digital ecology.

The governance and control of data is a key focal point of Digital China. A new age Marxist economic system that had elevated data as the key factor of production joining labour, land, capital, and technology.

TikTok delights consumers and advertisers worldwide, but China’s regime cannot let surveillance and propaganda be beyond its limits of authority. How this will play out is a big deal for everyone.

In effect, TikTok is a test case for global business, global internet and global capitalism.

Shubhranshu Singh is vice president, marketing - domestic & IB, CVBU, Tata Motors. He writes Simply Speaking, a weekly column on Storyboard18. Views expressed are personal.

<em>Note to readers: I'm intrigued by information such as that eight percent of the population is left-handed, that giraffes only sleep five minutes every twenty-four hours and so on which is useless but important! In the eighteenth century, German aristocrats kept glass-fronted cabinets which displayed curios. They called it Wunderkammern. This column is some such thing. In an unmarked field it is easy to wander… I want to open windows to glimpse views rather than a whodunnit or a how-to-do-it. I have a licence to be long or short. To be structured or abrupt. This column has no beginning, middle or end. It's a journey without a destination. Simply speaking...
</em>


Simply Speaking: TikTok is surging. For Meta or Verse

When TikTok was banned in India on June 29, 2020, it left close to 200 million users orphaned. In four years, the 15-second video platform owned by the Chinese technology company, ByteDance, had changed the way Bharat made and consumed content. With the accessibility of 15 regional languages on the app, there was a TikToker born out of narrow alleyways, ghats, river banks, and forests of the country. From Jhumri Telaiya to Tirunelveli, TikTok gave a confidence booster to users across ages, regions, classes and genders. Though for many urban Indian internet inhabitants TikTok’s videos were “cringe-inducing”, it gave wings to millions to fly and breathe the air of success and fame.

After two years of TikTok ban and several other apps and formats such as Instagram’s Reels, YouTube’s Shorts, Josh, and Moj, among a few others, getting popular, the space may seem cluttered. However, it looks like TikTok believes it can still find its ground here again.

According to a report in The Economic Times, Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, is looking to strike a new partnership in India and hire former and new employees as it seeks to re-enter one of the world's largest internet markets.

Digital experts that Storyboard18 spoke to think this could change the content game, again, in India.

<strong>The first-mover advantage
</strong>
According to a report by management consulting firm Bain &amp; Company, three in four Internet users - or 600 to 650 million Indians - will consume short-form videos by 2025, with active users spending up to 55 to 60 minutes per day. More than 200 million Indians watched short-form videos at least once in 2020, with daily active users spending up to 45 minutes a day on these platforms.
Since TikTok was one of the ﬁrst movers in the short-format content market, it has an advantage, as people are familiar with its interface, says Aarushi Sethi, business head, Pollen, the influencer marketing agency of Zoo Media. She believes this might encourage original TikTokers who were on the platform to revive their proﬁles. Interestingly, millions of creators are still called ‘TikTokers’ even though they have migrated to other platforms.

Multiple media reports indicate that home-grown apps managed to absorb 97% of TikTok creators. Sethi says a lot of them might go back on the platform that gave them fame and, in some cases, money.

Omkar Joshi, founder and chief creative officer of the digital-first consulting shop, hybrid&gt;, agrees with Sethi. However, he thinks creators will play smart and not make the mistake of putting all their eggs in one basket. He further states, “TikTok made it possible for so many Indians to escape an elitist gaze. And because the base was so broad and varied, it was free of any of the biases that are seen in everyday society. None of the alternatives today have been able to successfully achieve this at the scale that TikTok did.”

However, brands will be cautious to make a move, say experts.

<strong>Building Trust
</strong>

The biggest challenge for TikTok, if it makes a comeback, is winning the trust of users, creators, and brands, says Rohit Raj, co-founder &amp; chief creative officer, The Glitch. He explains, “We have heard stories of people who quit their jobs to become content creators. When TikTok was banned, people who built their content on the platform lost whatever they created overnight. Now, what is it for them to say that history would not repeat again? So, the trust factor would be a definite question mark.” He also observes that much like the pressure that Chinese brands have been taking on in India for a while, TikTok too will face the heat.

The advantage TikTok has, in the markets it still operates such as the US, UK, and Brazil, among others, is its algorithm of virality. Other global social platforms that have short formats don’t come close to that, says Raj. According to him, “Reels made a mall, and TikTok made a DMart”, a comparison that sums up the diversity of users and creators on these platforms.

<strong>Time for brands to think like creators
</strong>

Brands stayed away from TikTok for the longest time. Mainly because it was too ‘massy’. “They came on the platform because they realised that the audience they were targeting spent a lot of time on the platform. Brands will go where people are spending time. If TikTok regains popularity, they would go. But, as of now, I don’t see brands going straight up and jumping onto the platform,” opines Raj.

In 2019, when TikTok’s popularity was at its height, brands like Myntra, Zara, ShopClues, and Snapdeal; entertainment companies and OTT platforms, Dharma Productions, Hungama Music, and Viu; and personal care brand Clean &amp; Clear, among others, engaged on the platform. Some large legacy brands also experimented on TikTok, Pepsi was one of them that generated billions of views for its then #SwagStepChallenge.

“If a brand wants to be on TikTok again, they have to don the hat of a creator and not of an advertiser. Otherwise, it is like buying ad space,” says Raj candidly. hybrid&gt;’s Joshi also says that brands will flock to TikTok if users will. “They (marketers) are just going to wait and watch (as usual) and the moment something becomes a thing, they'll splurge money (sometimes thoughtfully too),” he adds.

On the other hand, Pollen’s Sethi says, TikTok gave advertisers a sneak peek into what Bharat was consuming.

With regional inﬂuencers coming to the forefront, the possible re-launch of TikTok will give them access to a newer platform and may bring back the loyalists. The other thing she says is even though TikTok is still operational internationally, however, for a comeback in India, local innovation, user retention, and stickiness, will be critical. Of course, providing assurance to creators and other stakeholders that they will be adhering to Indian data privacy laws and guidelines, will be important too, she says before signing off.

What TikTok’s possible comeback means for brands & creators

Between 2015 and 2018, I ran 5 seasons of Pro Kabaddi. It had become the number 2 sport on television in India right after the very first season. Yet - all this while - I was also marketing cricket in every avatar – domestic, team India and multilateral ICC tournaments and in every format viz: test series, ODI, and T20 events. I viewed sports from a marketer and broadcaster’s perspective which is the key to commercialisation. I serve as the chairperson for the sports development and promotion committee of the Lawn Bowls Federation in India. It is a commonwealth medal sport with a storied history patronised by aristocracy and royalty in Britain and across the commonwealth. It is aiming to grow in popularity via the setting up of rudimentary infrastructure and getting people to play and watch.

In 2018-19, I served as pro bono advisor to the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, Government of India. This association came about as I had earlier developed the plan and launch for Khelo India, a marquee initiative of the government which has now become successfully institutionalised.

My exposure to sport as a fan, marketer, broadcaster, sponsor and administrator has made me aware of the dynamics of sport adoption, growth and fan following but I am still looking to understand why some sports flourish while others do not.

<strong>Mortal Combat</strong>

Dozens of sports are struggling with commercial viability whilst a few are richer than the richest banks. The globalisation of most sports continues unabated. This trend is aided by technology which makes 24/7 sports audiences a reality. Successful sports make for a short list. Football, Basketball, Cricket, Rugby, American Football, Motorsport, Tennis, Cycling are on it. There are challenges in commercial success for one and all.

Everywhere, revenues are flowing in with increasing viscosity. Attention spans are smaller and viewer engagement is shrinking. Aggregated minutes of live sports viewership has declined at a yearly rate of 3-5% worldwide, despite supply and screens multiplying manifold. It appears people are consuming content on toothpicks, not in laden plates.

Understandably, there is mortal combat between sports for advertising revenues, fan attention and growth of followership. Sports earns at least $100 billion in content consumption worldwide. Historically it was linear TV that thrived on sports and vice versa. That effervescence of live sports is still much valued by fans. Sitting with friends in front of a large screen is the next best to screaming your lungs out with them at a stadium.

In America ESPN has more than 90% penetration into more than 50% of households who are regular consumers of sports content. Netflix has eroded pay-tv viewership in General Entertainment Content (GEC) but not live sporting broadcasts. The 80/20 law applies with its full force here. The National Football League in America will be instrumental in charting the future of entertainment on the internet. The future of Television corporations may be largely determined from where Americans will watch football games in the coming years. Only by retaining football viewers can television companies thrive in the digital age by preventing TV viewership from shrinking too quickly and supporting their future in streaming.

The entertainment companies that have must-watch programming will be the ones that make the transition to streaming. Till now, the internet hasn’t transformed the way sports is broadcast. But innovations have become noted. The NBA enriches it via pop up statistics in games and gives viewers choices in camera angles.

In general entertainment, there are two basic paths for online video, namely with stuff that regular people make — on TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Or like Netflix and the streaming video services from the big television entertainment companies with high cost, old-style programming. That is not possible in sports where access is based on winning rights. After that content can be screen agnostic.

<strong>Everyone can learn from football</strong>

Football is the most successful sport in the world. Its revenues, following, and clout are unmatched. At $45 billion a year its revenues are roughly 2x that of American football, 5x of basketball and 20x of cricket. The last FIFA women’s World Cup for women was watched by over a billion viewers. FIFA rules across the globe and the coherence and strategic clarity comes through at the ground level. Everyone can learn from football.

To be successful a sport must bear meaning. When I took Kabaddi to Indian TV, the intention was to make it synonymous with Indian pride for young Indians. Every aspect from the branding, visual presentation, language, rituals, connection and celebrity linkage was thought out with this in mind. It worked. I was putting 200 years of colonial legacy upside down. Until then, sports had meant western imports. After that Kabaddi stood for ‘Desi Cool’. Sports must adapt to modern viewing habits, not the other way around. Kabaddi arrived on the social scene as something new and aspirational but rooted and ancient. Growing a sport needs an easy-to-understand language, clear relational context and iconic heroes who spring up from the soil. Growth then demands expansion into newer markets.

<strong>Proudly desi sport</strong>

Here, I must give Cricket its due. Despite its limited global footprint, it has emerged stronger via a power-packed TV reincarnation. T20 is just what the doctors ordered. IPL is its best version. At three hours of end-to-end run time compared with eight hours for OD cricket or up to five days for Test matches, T20 was bound to become the rage it did. Rugby sevens, in which matches consist of two halves lasting seven minutes, compared with the usual 40 minutes, featured in the 2016 Olympic games for the first time. Three-a-side basketball, in which games last ten minutes as opposed to 48 minutes for NBA matches, is featured at the Olympics. This 3x3 basketball is a variation of basketball played three-a-side, with one backboard and in a half-court setup.

Cricket is unshakeable in India. It is – for all intents and purposes – an Indian sport. Its reinvention has made it proudly Desi. The Indian Premier League is by far the fastest-growing major league of any sport in the world. The next rights cycle bid process is currently on and, I predict, we shall see a never heard before the eye-popping number.

Indian money runs world cricket but, amongst world sports, cricket is unusual in relying so heavily on one market for sustenance. Other sports have grown apace across countries. Basketball has 32 teams competing in the men’s World Cup. Rugby’s cup has 24 teams vying for it. Football is at the top with 48 teams in the FIFA World Cup for men. Rugby took its world cup to Japan. Basketball’s World Cup got slated for Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The ICC ODI Cricket World Cup scarcely ever goes to expansion worthy geographies.

The success of Basketball in China is often attributed to one man. A tall man. Yao Ming became the first Chinese player to be the top pick in the NBA draft, two decades ago.

NBA’s physical expansion in China was fuelled by Yao’s popularity. There are now 600,000 basketball courts in China. The NBA has three academies in China, besides one each in Australia, Mexico, India, and Senegal.

Even the most conservative of sports bodies such as the venerable International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responding to change, even embracing it. Rock climbing, skateboarding, surfing and karate made a much-noticed debut at the last Tokyo summer Olympics. The IOC knows its commercial success depends on getting and keeping a younger crowd. Shooting, fencing, water polo or weightlifting may not be youth crowd pullers. Hence, the expansion is well aimed. The new sports alone created 54 medallists. In addition, baseball and softball made a comeback aimed at popularity in both the US and Japan.

The new sports are admitted in competitive formats that make them interest worthy, even riveting. For example, climbers do bouldering, lead climbing and speed climbing. The last has been an innovation to emphasise the edge and athleticism. It makes for gripping, suspenseful screen content.

Even outside medal events or formal sports, there is evolution. Take base jumping — the sport in which you leap from a fixed object, like a bridge or a cliff all the while piloting yourself at speeds of 100 m.p.h. or more before pulling a parachute. Fightball is a combative take on one-on-one street basketball. It repurposes it with more physicality for the unregulated intensity for the Instagram era.

Not all innovations are adrenalin-charged or high contact. There is (Cup) Stacking which is evolving into a fast-growing sport and part of the physical education curriculum at thousands of American schools. More than two dozen nations will field teams at the world championships, and stacking is growing fastest in Asia. Think of it - why should stacking cups be any less important than putting a ball in a hole, through a hoop or into a net?

It is not unreasonable to apply a lifecycle framework to a sport. The world is moving away from a purely western sensibility to sports and cross-pollination is happening as much in sport as in fashion or cuisine with the caveat that, for sport, it takes more time to strike root and grow. I am not going to get into the magic and might of e-sports as it deserves a separate piece.

Look at it anyway, India will become the world’s leading market for sport in the next 2 decades by volumetric criteria. It will be a top 3 market by value.

Play on.

TIKTOK