ByteDance is making an attempt to repeat the success of TikTok with Lemon8, its newest social media app, experiences CNBC. Performing as a mixture of Instagram and Pinterest, Lemon8 has shortly exploded in recognition, being the second most downloaded way of life app within the US during the last month, leaping 693 positions, based on knowledge.ai. The app was first launched in Japan in 2020, and since its international launch on March 29 has been downloaded greater than 17 million instances worldwide.

Regardless of this, issues stay concerning ByteDance’s strategy to privateness, and its ties to the Chinese language authorities. Regardless of its claims to not share personal data, Chinese language legislation requires the corporate handy over any knowledge, together with delicate data akin to geolocational knowledge and contacts, to the Chinese language authorities if requested. This regulation has seen the app banned on authorities telephones in numerous areas such because the USA, UK, and EU.

Nevertheless, the USA is contemplating going additional and banning TikTok solely, with the state of Montana being the primary to institute a ban on the app on private units earlier this month, calling the app a nationwide safety threat and accusing it of encouraging harmful actions. On a nationwide scale, President Joe Biden has instructed ByteDance that TikTok faces a federal ban except its Chinese language homeowners promote its shares within the app.

When life provides you lemons, make Lemon8?

“It’s definitely fascinating timing. It looks as if ByteDance is pushing Lemon8 as a possible various to TikTok,” mentioned German Marshall Fund senior fellow of rising tech Lindsay Gorman.

“You possibly can see this because the aggressive transfer of an organization that’s making an attempt to broaden into totally different client markets and segments with extra image-based and longer-form written content material versus solely short-form movies.”

No matter ByteDance’s hopes for Lemon8, the very fact stays that the identical points which have plagued Tiktok will seemingly proceed. The troublesome laws which requires the corporate to share data with the Chinese language Communist Occasion stays in place, and ByteDance could face comparable questions concerning the safety of consumer knowledge.

Earlier this month, TikTok was fined £12.7 million by the UK’s Data Commissioner’s Workplace for the misuse of kids’s knowledge.