Hindustan Times (Jalandhar)

Govt depts, CMs exit apps after ban

- Sunetra Choudhury letters@hindustant­imes.com

NEW DELHI: When the ministry of electronic­s and informatio­n technology was sending out its public order banning 59, mostly Chinese, mobile applicatio­ns, two government department­s were tracking the note very carefully. One was the Press Informatio­n Bureau of India (and not because it had to disseminat­e the order) and the other was MyGov.in, the platform to crowdsourc­e ideas about governance.

As soon as the government announced that these apps pose a “threat to sovereignt­y and integrity of India,” both PIB and MyGov.in deleted their accounts on Tik-Tok and its regional version, Helo.

Confirming this to HT, MyGov.in’s CEO Abhishek Singh said the action was in keeping with government policies.

“We joined Tik-Tok and Helo in April because we are there on all platforms,’’ he said. “If the platform violates the law, then we will leave it. We have to abide by our laws.’’

In just the two months that PIB and MyGov. in were on Tiktok, they garnered more than a milered lion followers and that may be a reason why many top politician­s may miss the apps, which send out short videos and messages.

A PIB spokespers­on told HT: “We were not on Tik-Tok for the love of China, but because it has followers. We wanted to spread the word and it was very effective.’’

It’s not just these central government department­s. In the last few months, Tik-Tok and Helo have been hosting a formidable bunch of top leaders. From Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan to Punjab’s Amarinder Singh and Andhra Pradesh’s YS Jagan Mohan Reddy , they had all signed up for Tik-Tok and Helo accounts because of the sheer numbers that they saw as audiences.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrashe­khar Rao’s team said that they got the idea to join TikTok after seeing the Central government using it for its coronaviru­s disease messaging.

“We were just toying with the idea of starting a Tik-Tok account for the CM when this order came,’’ saod Dileel Konathan, who handles social media for the Telangana CM. “At the moment, we just ran our Corona campaign on Tik-Tok.’’

According to Konathan, the app is appealing because it has a high captive audience, one which is much larger than that offered by Twitter and FaceBook. “The demographi­c is completely different. You get followers in rural areas who may be semi-literate and they are all consuming your content.’’

In other words, they offer a means of communicat­ing with grassroots citizens. Ankit Lal, who handles social media for Delhi chief minister Kejriwal, explained that they came to these apps very recently, just before February’s elections.

At that time, Kejriwal gath912,000 followers on Helo and 179,000 followers on TikTok.

“The kind of followers you get here are 180 degrees different from any other platform. Also, while FaceBook and others have ad-based targeting, here you don’t have to do that,’’ he said.

The Kerala government was exploiting that feature for not just the CM’s messages but also to run separate accounts for its police and tourism department as well. In fact, the police had almost a million followers on Tik-Tok.

“We used to use sharechat for our Malayalee videos but we only got 51,000 followers in that. Comparativ­ely, the Tik-Tok and Helo accounts get several times more. They really cater to the regional, tier two audience and every time we put out our videos, it engaged many more people,’’ said Appu Lenin, who handles Vijayan’s social media accounts.

“It takes such little time for a new app to take over, that it doesn’t really matter,’’ said Lenin suggesting that TikTok may have been their engine to reach rural audiences for some time now, but they are sure that another app promising the same features is sure to come along soon.

› We used to use Sharechat for our Malayalee videos but we only got 51,000 followers in that. Comparativ­ely, the TikTok and Helo accounts get several times more.

APPU LENIN, Kerala CM social media account manager

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