TikTok Is About to Get More Promotional (and Annoying)

TikTok has already been under fire for a slew of pirated content that recently made its way onto it. Apparently, users can now watch entire movies or TV shows either cropped into a bunch of parts or as a whole on the Chinese-owned social media app. What makes its piracy problem worse is that without attempting to fix, or even acknowledge the issue, Tiktok has moved onto an entirely new feature for bringing copyrighted content on the app. It’s called Tiktok Spotlight and has already rolled out on the platform.

TikTok Spotlight is essentially a marketing move introduced as a “new promotional solution that drives community” with the aim of “[making] it easy for studios to harness the power of TikTok for upcoming releases and library content”. With the feature, users can easily get all the info on a movie or TV show they come across while on TikTok. Previously, they would have to comment to ask about such details. In fact, some creators would intentionally skip out on info like this just so people can comment and boost the video’s engagement.

With Tiktok Spotlight, users can click on an anchor link that will now appear on TikToks where a movie or show is mentioned. This will take them to a landing page to find details such as the title, synopsis, and cast for the movie. They will also be able to look at the cast’s official accounts and other TikToks made about the same film, which is another strategic move on TikTok’s part to make them go down a never-ending rabbit hole. TikTok Spotlight will also contain an external link to a streaming service that is showing the film, or, if the movie is out in theaters, it will include a link to buy tickets.

While some may find this helpful, personally, I’m quite annoyed at just the thought of it. I can’t help but think how much more market-y the app is going to get. I was already a little uncomfortable with being inundated with so many product links that it felt more like an e-commerce platform than a social media app. I also prefer the raw, casual nature of the app and not to have anchor links embedded everywhere. I would rather stay in the dark about which movie a TikTok is referring to than have an invasive link in there with a bunch of info I never asked for.

Lastly, as previously mentioned, there is already a pretty serious piracy problem on the platform that it needs to figure out before it can move on to new features like these. Some Gizmodo staffers mentioned that they have watched entire movies and episodes of TV shows on TikTok which were, of course, uploaded illegally and without copyright permission. Introducing a feature so closely related to that without ever trying to fix the mess that already exists on the app doesn’t make much sense.