The image of TikTok collapsed! Was it the "Chinese son-in-law" Zuckerberg who instigated the siege? Netizens: The real two-faced Zuckerberg

Author | Liu Lin

"Others are the butchers and I am the meat." This seems to be a true portrayal of ByteDance and TikTok. Since TikTok was openly attacked, everyone has been guessing who is the mastermind behind it.

On the 23rd, the US media gave an answer: the mastermind behind TikTok is "Chinese son-in-law" Zuckerberg.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on the evening of the 23rd, the reason why the Trump administration targeted TikTok was largely due to the lobbying of Facebook CEO Zuckerberg.

On August 23, the US media "Wall Street Journal" published a long article revealing that Zuckerberg has been exaggerating the threat posed by TikTok to the United States in public speeches and private meetings with White House officials and lawmakers since last year. He also proposed to Trump that the threat of the rise of Chinese Internet companies should be a more worthy issue than controlling Facebook's monopoly, which triggered the Trump administration's concerns about TikTok.

The report bluntly stated that Facebook also played a big role in causing American people's concerns about TikTok and its Chinese owners. Few technology companies will benefit as much from TikTok's predicament as Facebook.

Although this is not surprising, netizens are still very angry and said: It is confirmed that Zuckerberg is a man.

The Wall Street Journal said Zuckerberg began to be dissatisfied with TikTok last fall.

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech about free speech in Washington, D.C. last fall, he had one agenda: sounding the alarm about the threat from Chinese tech companies, and more specifically, the popular short-video-sharing app TikTok.

There was a sentence in the speech that directly pointed to Facebook's rising competitor TikTok: Zuckerberg told Georgetown University students that TikTok is not as committed to freedom of speech as Facebook, and it will pose a threat to American values ​​​​and technological dominance.

"In the past, the Internet was dominated by American giants. Now, among the top ten Internet giants in the world, six are Chinese Internet companies... The rise of Chinese Internet companies is a threat to the United States."

He exaggerated that TikTok was inconsistent with American values, declaring that "content in the United States will face censorship when protests are mentioned. Is this the Internet we want?"

In addition, people familiar with the matter also revealed that this was a message that Zuckerberg repeatedly emphasized during the above-mentioned trip last October and in meetings with White House officials and lawmakers during his visit to Washington in those weeks.

Some people familiar with the matter said that at a private dinner at the White House in late October last year, Zuckerberg reiterated his concerns about China to Trump and suggested that the rise of Chinese Internet companies threatens American business, which should be a greater concern than restricting Facebook.

It was also revealed that Zuckerberg specifically discussed TikTok in a meeting with several senators. His team also contacted hawkish congressmen on China, asking "why TikTok is allowed to operate in the United States, while other American companies such as Facebook cannot operate in China."

Coincidentally, shortly thereafter, the Trump administration began to conduct a national security review of TikTok. And this spring, Trump began threatening to ban TikTok.

On July 29, the CEOs of the four largest U.S. technology giants—Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook—gathered in the U.S. Congress to attend a hearing of the House Antitrust Committee.

The original intention of this hearing was to focus on whether the four major American technology giants have abused their monopoly position, but in the overall environment of the current macro-strategic game between China and the United States, especially in the field of science and technology information.

This meeting inevitably involves China issues.

However, Zuckerberg pointed the gun at TikTok, implying that the app posed a threat to US national security.

When the CEOs of the Big Four were asked "Do you think the Chinese government steals American technology?", Cook, Pichai and Bezos answered "No, as far as I know", but Zuckerberg said, "This is well documented."

In response to such accusations, newly appointed TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer pointed out the reason for Zuckerberg's statement in a statement: "Facebook is using the name of patriotism to make us disappear from the United States."

Interestingly, less than a week after the hearing, Zuckerberg changed his attitude towards TikTok and quickly "turned against it."

Zuckerberg talked about the current situation of TikTok at a recent Facebook all-hands meeting. He said:

"I just think it's a very bad long-term precedent that should be handled very carefully and carefully, no matter how it's ultimately resolved. I'm concerned ... that this will have long-term effects on other countries."

It is reported that an employee asked Zuckerberg at the conference whether Facebook is interested in acquiring TikTok. He refused to comment on the company's business decisions.

In addition, he also mentioned that an app is used by more and more people and is increasingly regarded as a competitor by local governments, and the national security issues they encounter are reasonable. However, he expressed sympathy for the national security issues that TikTok has suffered from the Trump administration.

Netizen: Zuckerberg is really two-faced!

So why is Zuckerberg so afraid of TikTok?

First of all, Zuckerberg is a businessman. The first factor a businessman considers is undoubtedly how to make more money, and the entry of TikTok has undoubtedly put more pressure on Facebook.

Three years ago, Zhang Yiming fought his way through numerous competitors, acquired Musical.ly and integrated it into Tiktok, replicating the successful experience of Douyin in China. Within three months of its overseas launch, the MAU grew rapidly by 30%, and the overseas expansion journey began.

From taking the first place in the Japanese App Store free list in November 2017 to the first place in the Thai local App Store ranking the following year, TikTok quickly became popular around the world and established a firm foothold in the North American market. In April this year, it earned $78 million in the global App Store and Google Play, a 10-fold year-on-year increase, ranking first in the global mobile application revenue list. In June, TikTok ranked first in the global app download list, with India and the United States being the main contributors.

AppTrace's survey shows that TikTok jumped from 269th to fourth in the global app download rankings in February 2019 (it has remained in the top four since 2020). As of the end of 2019, TikTok had a total of 1.65 billion downloads, of which downloads in 2019 accounted for 44% of the total downloads.

In the first quarter of this year, TikTok became the most downloaded app in the world in a single quarter, with cumulative downloads exceeding 315 million times. In the US market, TikTok has also become one of the most popular apps this year, with cumulative downloads exceeding 165 million times.

The first to be affected by these achievements is Facebook, the world's largest social platform. Every new user of TikTok takes away the time spent on Facebook products.

Almost all of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising, accounting for 98.53% of its revenue in 2019. "Mobile social + advertising" is an ideal business model, but the premise is that users continue to grow and are willing to spend time on the platform. TikTok's rise in the European and American markets and its continued acquisition of high-quality users have obviously threatened Facebook's advertising revenue.

Compared to TikTok, Facebook is already an old man, but Zuckerberg will not allow the drama of “only hearing the new people laughing but not seeing the old people crying” to happen.

Of course, in addition to seizing a part of the market, TikTok has a more fatal problem for Facebook itself, that is, its products have been full of the infamy of "plagiarism" in recent years.

On the evening of August 2, ByteDance published a statement directly naming Facebook, saying that the company faced various complex and unimaginable difficulties in the process of globalization, including the tense international political environment, the collision and conflict of different cultures, and the plagiarism and smearing of its competitor Facebook.

In 2017, after TikTok entered the market, Facebook launched a short video app - Lasso.

As of the end of last year, Facebook's Lasso had been installed 425,000 times worldwide. Bytedance's TikTok had been installed 640 million times. Obviously, Facebook was completely defeated.

As for Lasso developed by Facebook, The New York Times described it as "a crappy copycat software."

This is a "copycat" that even the American media can't stand. This is one of the sources of Facebook's "plagiarism" mentioned by ByteDance in its statement.

In July this year, Facebook officially shut down Lasso. But "coincidentally", just as Tiktok was facing strong pressure from the US government, Facebook's Instagram was going to launch a short video product Reels in early August.

This also caused Facebook's stock price to rise by more than 7% at one point, and the stock price continued to hit a new high the next day. In just two days, Facebook founder Zuckerberg's net worth soared by more than US$10 billion (equivalent to RMB 70 billion), becoming the youngest 100 billionaire in the world.

The app has also been called a "TikTok knockoff" by the US media. Its features include dancing to music and skits, which are the two most popular types of content on TikTok. Similar to TikTok, Reels allows users to post 15-second videos on it, and has the function of adding music and multiple filters. After the production is completed, it can be shared on platforms such as Instagram.

What’s even more interesting is that Facebook not only created a copycat TikTok, but also started preparing to poach many of the high-traffic influencers on TikTok.

Moreover, this time, Facebook directly offered prices to some influencers, and some people could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars just by joining Reels. For those who are unwilling to "jump ship", Facebook said that as long as they can first release their videos on Reels and then synchronize them to other platforms, they can still get rewards for video production.

It has to be said that Facebook's products do lack a lot of novelty and sincerity, and the cost of asking users to relearn and get used to a new app is unacceptable to many people. In addition, users also value the content ecosystem and the endless platform creativity. So although poaching is a ruthless move, it is not a sure kill.

To sum up, this series of facts can only show that under the power of capital, there are only eternal interests but no eternal friends.

References:

• https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202008231637/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-stoked-washingtons-fears-about-tiktok

• https://www.leiphone.com/news/202007/Y1W1VyVRUpdmrwRK.html

• https://3w.huanqiu.com/a/c36dc8/3zb8xY0Widw?agt=20&tt_group_id=6864428140681232910

• https://www.toutiao.com/a6857090029228196366/