Google Trends: India wants to ban TikTok and Netflix is trending over Coronavirus Cases
By Jhanvi Verma
TikTok and YouTube are at war in India
According to an analysis of Google search data, TikTok seems to be in decline over YouTube. In India, TikTok’s rating has sunken drastically from 1.3 stars from 4.6 stars due to the recent controversy regarding a TikTok user, Amir Siddiqui, and YouTuber Ajey Nagar.
TikTok is a short video platform created in 2016 by a Chinese company called ByteDance Ltd. In almost four years, TikTok has gained users from countries such as the United States and India. Even though YouTuber has 2 billion users and TikTok has 800 million users, TikTok seems to be dominating video business. Especially in India, there are over 113 million active TikTok users.
After the dispute between Amir Siddique and Ajey Nagar, people from India have been appealing that TikTok should be banned and hashtags such as #RoastNahiFryKarunga and #BanTikTokInIndia started trending on Twitter. This is not the first time TikTok has received backlash regarding their content from the public and it’ll be interesting to see the future of TikTok in India.
Netflix is trending over the roof as lockdown extends in the United States
With more than 1.1 million active cases in the US, the country has extended lockdown and issued stay-at-home order in states such as New York, Illinois, etc.
To add to that, HBO Max is launching on May 27 in the US and despite their high level of promoting the streaming services by showcasing Friends in their list of content. However, they don't seem to get the audience’s recognition when you compare it to Netflix.
Netflix has been around since 2007, but HBO Max is not only a streaming service owned by HBO. HBO has launched HBO Now and HBO Go previously and they have a significant amount of users on them.
On the other hand, it is evident through the google search analysis that people have been looking up coronavirus cases on regular bases in the United States for the past month. The reason why Netflix is trending is due to the increase in usage of Netflix as citizens have been asked to stay at home.
