Alone it stands, a red gummy bear atop a dimly lit stage, and the unmistakable voice of Adele singing. Then, as the unseen crowd joins in with the next line, the camera pans out to reveal hundreds more gummy bears singing along to Someone Like You. It's silly and cute and extremely watchable. And for the fledgling video app TikTok, it did more in 15 seconds than marketing budgets of millions. Posted in December 2018, it quickly racked up millions of views on the app but - more importantly - was picked up by thousands of copycats on other social networks. The world was alerted to the app and TikTok has since attracted a vibrant, creative and young audience of hundreds of millions. TikTok's origins are different to the fairy tale start-up story we have heard before. This is not an empire built by a couple of friends with a great idea in their mum's garage. It actually started life as three different apps. The first was an app called Musical.ly, which launched in Shanghai in 2014 but had strong US business links and a healthy audience in that key market. In 2016, Chinese tech giant ByteDance launched a similar service in China called Douyin. It attracted 100 million users in China and Thailand in the space of a year. ByteDance decided it was onto something and wanted to expand under a different brand - TikTok. So, in 2018 it bought Musical.ly, folded it in, and began TikTok's global expansion. TikTok's secret lies in its use of music and an extraordinarily powerful algorithm, which learns what content users like to see far faster than many other apps. Users can choose from a huge database of songs, filters and movie clips to lip sync to. It's inspired some huge trends like Lil Nas X's Old Town Road or Curtis Roach's Bored in the House. Even the BBC News theme tune went viral as Brits made light of daily coronavirus briefings. Many people will spend most of the time on the For You Page. This is where the algorithm puts content in front of users, anticipating what they will enjoy based on content they have already engaged with. It's also where it shows content it thinks could go viral. The idea is that if the content is good it will travel, regardless of how many followers the creator has. Many TikTok communities have emerged, brought together by the types of content they enjoy or their sense of identity. Communities like "Alt" or "Deep" often feature creators who aren't necessarily looking to fill their wallets but who are simply on the platform to make funny or informative content. For them, it's not about winning the attention of big brands - it's about finding like-minded people. The growth of TikTok and its sister app Douyin have been rapid. In July last year the apps already had one billion downloads worldwide, of which 500 million were active users. A year later they were on two billion downloads and about 800 million active users. The app's rapid growth has also put TikTok at the forefront of the minds of politicians. What does it mean to have a Chinese app so quickly become a large part of modern life? Although the accusations are vague, India and the US have concerns that TikTok is collecting sensitive data from users that could be used by the Chinese government for spying. It has been alleged that every major Chinese enterprise has an internal "cell" answerable to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, with many of its agents tasked with gathering secrets. India initially banned TikTok in April 2019, after a court ordered its removal from app stores amid claims it was being used to spread pornography. That decision was overturned on appeal. When it banned TikTok again, along with dozens of other Chinese owned apps in June 2020, the Indian government said it had received complaints about apps "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data". The UK's Information Commissioner's Office and Australian intelligence agencies are currently probing the app but haven't revealed what they are looking for. It's of course worth noting that relations between these countries are tense, with the US at odds with China over trade, Indian and Chinese forces involved in border clashes, and the UK opposing new security laws in Hong Kong. Exactly what TikTok does with data is contested. We know from its privacy policy that it collects a huge amount, including: Which videos are watched and commented on Location data Phone model and operating system Keystroke rhythms when people type It was also revealed that it read the copy-and-paste clipboards of users, but so did dozens of other apps including Reddit, LinkedIn and the BBC News app, and nothing sinister was discovered. Most evidence points to TikTok's data collection being comparable to other data-hungry social networks such as Facebook. However, unlike its US-based rivals, TikTok says it is willing to offer an unprecedented level of transparency in order to ease some of the fears about its data collection and flow. TikTok's new chief executive Kevin Mayer, an American former Disney executive, said it would allow experts to examine the code behind its algorithms. This is hugely significant in an industry where data and code are closely guarded. However, the concerns aren't just about what data is collected, it's also more theoretical - could the Chinese government compel ByteDance to hand over data? The same concerns have been raised about Huawei. The 2017 National Security Law in China compels any organisation or citizen to "support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work". However, like Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, bosses at TikTok have repeatedly said that if this ever happened, "we would definitely say no to any request for data". Adapted from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53640724 Questions: 1.1. It is evident that social media platforms such as TikTok exist in a VUCA environment. Discuss and apply the approach that leaders at TikTok can use to manage and counter its VUCA environment. (15) 1.2. The competition amongst social media platforms is fierce. A sound strategy to navigate this is necessary. Fully discuss the competitive strategies and identify which strategy/strategies have been adopted by TikTok. (15)