Marketing Trend Tracker - Series 14
This edition of Trend Tracker examines the dramatic escalation of the ongoing tensions between governments and social media giants as Brazil has made headlines with its decision to ban Elon Musk’s platform, X. This decision has had immediate and severe consequences, including removal from major app stores. With X's future in Brazil uncertain, and its global position weakened, the spotlight now shifts to competitors like Threads, which are gaining ground, and TikTok, which continues to bolster its election security measures amidst its own challenges.
In the latest clash between governments and social media sites, Brazil has banned Elon Musk’s platform X due to failure to comply with Brazilian court orders to take down the accounts of seven anti-government commentators known to be creating unrest in the country. From the point of view of X, there had not been sufficient information provided to justify the removal of the accounts.
This case goes back to April 2024 when the Brazilian Supreme Court mandated X to comply with the government orders to stifle accounts spreading hate speech and false reports. Subsequently, X refused,
citing the request was not legal
under Brazilian law and not aligned with the platform’s “free speech” moderation approach. After months of push and pull, X shut down its office in the country and evacuated employees out of fear of their arrest. Eventually, the platform was shut down for not nominating a legal representative in Brazil.
Brazil’s total ban on X forced the Apple App Store and Google Play Store to remove the app. In addition, the judiciary has made it clear that anyone found trying to access X via a VPN could face serious fines up to $8,900 USD. There are serious and immediate impacts X is dealing with including a loss of around 20 million users and all of the ad dollars in the nation. In one night, X’s daily active user count dropped from 250 to 230 million adding to the recent loss of 5 million European users. On all fronts, X’s numbers have significantly decreased with its user base down 10% and its revenue down 83% compared to before Elon Musk took over the app. These statistics do not show a positive outlook for the company coupled with its debt burden.
So, what now for the social media platform? It appears unlikely that either party will concede to the other as more and more Brazilian users are switching to other social media outlets. Whether X will ever return to the nation is unknown, but the impact of this event will continue to weigh heavily on the social media platform.
Threads Is On The Rise
While X is on the decline, its competitor Threads seems to be gaining traction. In the July 2024 app download charts from AppFigures, an analytics and optimization app, Threads is shown to be performing well. Meta, Threads’s parent company, dominates the top ten listings and always has four or five apps there. This report, however, shows Threads’s progress as it made it to the top ten of the download charts for the first time since its launch in the summer of 2023. This July, the app made it to 7th place on the combined charts for the App Store and Google Play, appearing to be increasing its downloads over time.
X did not make the top ten and AppFigures has reported that Threads downloads are
continuously outpacing those of X. Even with X’s ongoing struggles, the platform still has a considerably greater number of users than Threads. Nevertheless, Threads is an app to watch and pay attention to as a marketer.
TikTok Updates Election Security Measures
Ahead of the U.S. election, TikTok recently announced an updated
U.S. Election Center in the app
which features a range of information tools aiming to keep users accurately knowledgeable for the upcoming vote. This center is nothing new as the platform launched similar features during previous elections. For the 2024 election, the center will provide links to reliable third-party sources and information regarding what is on the ballot.
TikTok has partnered with MediaWise on a series of media literacy content and highlights common misinformation approaches. MediaWise is a non profit project run by Poynter that is committed to imbuing individuals with the skills to recognize misinformation. Now, the platform is planning to expand its resources into multiple languages. Furthermore, TikTok created an internal US Elections Integrity Advisory Group to advise on key election information features as well as educating public figures on its safety policies and capabilities.
The social media platform is planning to invest over $2 billion on trust and safety elements this year, which includes the U.S. elections features. This is a costly amount of money for TikTok especially since it may be forced out of the U.S. at the end of the year.
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