TikTok was the fourth most downloaded non-gaming app in the world last year, hitting 655.8 million unique installs. So far in 2019, the app has accumulated 614 million downloads — 6 percent more than it had by the same point last year—and looks set to surpass 2018’s total. It’s currently the third most downloaded non-gaming app of the year, behind WhatsApp at No. 1 with 707.4 million installs and Messenger at No. 2 with 636.2 million. It sits above Facebook at No. 4 with 587 million downloads and Instagram at No. 5 with 376.2 million.
It’s not an app that grabs me but I can understand many users want quick ongoing entertainment without all the crud, political adverts and fake news. Many just want to have a laugh and be entertained, and Facebook is more for the older generation. TikTok is a bit more like the old Instagram on steroids and focussed on short videos that users upload. I just hope that politicians don’t read this and start uploading their adverts there too 
Zuckerberg is taking issue more around the censorship laws as he has gone very cold on getting any foothold in China. This week, TikTok announced it was hiring an outside law firm to review its content moderation policies and increase transparency. It’s true that behind the scenes privacy and censorship has become the biggest issues but Facebook is also very far from being clean in that regard themselves. Users just want entertainment and the youth do realise that nothing online on someone else’s platform is truly private. Countries and cultures do differ and what we need is many countries adding to the mix and not to have any single country try to dominate the social media and messaging platforms.
See https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-downloads-1-5-billion
#socialmedia #privacy
#^TikTok Clocks 1.5 Billion Downloads on The App Store and Google Play
ByteDance’s app continues to be one of the most popular and most installed in the world, Sensor Tower data shows.