TikTok Is About to Get More (And Annoying) Advertising

TikTok has already been criticized for the amount of wrapped content it has recently introduced. Apparently, users can now watch entire movies or TV shows cut into parts or in their entirety on the China-owned social media app. What makes its piracy problem even worse is that without trying to fix, or even acknowledge the issue, Tiktok has moved on to an entirely new feature of delivering copyrighted content to the app. It’s called Tiktok Spotlight and it’s already launched on the platform.

TikTok Spotlight is actually a marketing initiative introduced as a “new social-driven advertising solution” with the aim of “[making] it’s easy for studios to leverage the power of TikTok with future releases and library content”. With the feature, users can easily find all the details on a movie or TV show they come across while on TikTok. Previously, they would have had to comment to ask for such details. In fact, some creators may intentionally skip information like this just so people can comment and improve video engagement.

With Tiktok Spotlight, users can click an anchor link that will now appear on TikToks where a movie or show is mentioned. This will take them to a landing page for information such as the title, synopsis, and cast of the movie. They will also be able to look at the official accounts of the characters and other TikToks made from the same movie, which is another strategy on the part of TikTok to get them down the endless rabbit hole. TikTok Spotlight will contain an external link to the streaming service showing the movie, or, if the movie is out in theaters, it will include a link to buy tickets.

While others may find this helpful, personally, I’m just offended by the thought of it. I can’t help but think how market-y the app is going to get. I was already uncomfortable with being overloaded with links to so many products that it felt more like an e-commerce platform than a social media app. I also prefer a raw, casual type of app that doesn’t have hyperlinks embedded everywhere. I’d rather be in the dark about what movie TikTok is talking about than have an invasive link with a bunch of information I never asked for.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, there is already a very serious problem of piracy on the platform that it must address before it can move on to new features like this. Some Gizmodo employees revealed that they watched all the movies and episodes of TV shows on TikTok, which were uploaded illegally and without copyright permission. Introducing a feature that’s so close to that without trying to fix the damage that already exists in the operating system doesn’t make much sense.