In the meantime, TikTok is ploughing ahead testing ‘creator’ marketplaces across the region, championing influencers like Saputra, and negotiating data deals with telecoms firms to keep a lid on consumers’ smartphone bills, according to interviews with current and former staffers. I was an ordinary person, making videos like any other normal person, who didn’t have an idea on how this would play out,” said Saputra, now adding hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers every week. It would be so disappointing if TikTok was erased from Indonesia,' Saputra told Reuters, speaking before filming a sketch in a paddy field. But in his base in Sukabumi, West Java province, Saputra is only too aware of risks. behemoths Facebook FB.O and Google GOOGL.O head on as both pour billions into Southeast Asia.īyteDance declined to comment for this article, and it’s unclear whether or how the prospective sale of operations in the United States and elsewhere might effect Southeast Asia. The region is now key to the future of TikTok and ByteDance: The Chinese firm is already plugging TikTok as part of a suite of interconnected apps for live video streaming, messaging and music, tackling U.S. The approach is to launch ‘non-political’ products fast, promising to governments in places like Vietnam that content will be tightly policed in accordance with local laws, according to interviews with a dozen current and former employees. Southeast Asia offers a clear view of the global strategy ByteDance is implementing to avoid crackdowns in other regions that influencers like Saputra now fear. operations, triggering the resignation on Thursday of only recently installed CEO Kevin Mayer. Data trackers show it’s been downloaded hundreds of millions of times already in a region with a collective population of 630 million - half of them under 30.īut it also comes as concerns over how secure user data is in the hands of its Chinese owner ByteDance summon big storm clouds elsewhere - TikTok has been banned in India and President Donald Trump has ordered ByteDance to sell its U.S.

Sandy’s success, becoming his family’s main breadwinner as global brands like Coca Cola or Suntory pay to have their names on his light-hearted clips, comes as TikTok mushrooms across Southeast Asia. Sandy Saputra, 19, who is one of TikTok's biggest Indonesian stars, talks during an interview with Reuters in Jakarta, Indonesia, July 24, 2020.

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