Nepali influencer Anjana Aryal went from housewife to entrepreneur by sharing recipes on TikTok, but her lucrative business collapsed last month when the Himalayan republic banned the Chinese short video app.
Filming with her mobile phone in one hand and cooking with the other, Aryal quickly became a social media star in Nepal last year, garnering millions of views from nearly 600,000 people.
All this came to an abrupt halt when Nepal banned TikTok to protect “social harmony”, following similar restrictions imposed in other countries over concerns about data security, obscene content and its owner’s alleged ties to the Chinese government.
“My life has changed a lot because of TikTok, a lot,” Aryal, 39, told AFP from her home in Kathmandu. “So many people recognize me because of TikTok everywhere I go.”
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He earned nearly $3,000 from endorsement deals in October alone, more than twice the average annual income of Nepal.
Encouraged by her audience, Aryal also started a business selling her own brand of pickles, which saw her inbox flooded with orders.
But since the ban, Aryal and other prominent Nepali content creators have seen their revenue streams dry up, putting their livelihoods at risk.
“People were earning, running businesses or just having fun on TikTok. Everyone is affected now and they don’t know what to do,” he said.
Owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms on the planet with more than a billion users.
Its explosive growth has given its content creators and influencers a huge audience, and its editing capabilities and AI-based algorithm have proven particularly attractive.
But the algorithm is opaque and often accused of putting users in content silos, and the platform has also been accused of spreading misinformation.
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It has faced intense scrutiny in the United States and other nations over the security of user data and the company’s alleged ties to Beijing.
Many countries have tried to tighten controls on TikTok, and the platform has been banned in neighboring India.
“Start from scratch”
The growing criticism of the app has alarmed influencers around the world.
Some, like those in Pakistan, have lost income due to periodic government restrictions on TikTok.
Others in the United States have expressed fears in local media of thousands of dollars in lost income if the bans are enforced.
The Nepalese government justified its ban on the platform by accusing it of damaging the social fabric of the Himalayan republic.
It came days before a huge rally called by a prominent businessman who used TikTok to organize a campaign demanding the restoration of Nepal’s monarchy.
Dozens of content creators staged a rally in Kathmandu demanding the ban be lifted last month.
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Advocate Dinesh Tripathi, who is challenging the decision in court, said the ban was an attack on people’s free speech because the government was afraid of “backlash”.
“The first and foremost duty of the state is to facilitate citizens to exercise their rights and freedoms and not to prohibit it,” he said.
Manish Adhikari, who uses TikTok to discuss Nepali autos and startups, said he had several endorsement deals canceled due to the ban.
“Brands started calling me … and I was wondering if I went out of business, would my work stop?” Adhikari said.
Adhikari has shifted to Instagram, but the views and followers are a fraction of his former audience.
“I lost all my audience because I wasn’t that active on any other platform,” he said. “Now I have to start from scratch.”
There are about 2.2 million TikTok users among Nepal’s 30 million people, according to the Internet Service Providers Association.
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However, Monayac Karki, founder of Nepali influencer marketing firm Uptrendly, said TikTok’s popularity was growing exponentially.
He added that the ban had torpedoed a market estimated to be worth more than $5 million each year for advertisers and content creators, and which was set to grow rapidly.
“I really hope this ban is temporary and lifted soon,” he said.
Source: AFP