If you have been following the spat between YouTubers and TikTokers in India, you would know that an influx of negative reviews from angered netizens tanked Tiktok’s Android app’s rating close to one. Yeah, TikTok went from a 4.5 rating to 1.2 within a couple of days. Google stepped to the occasion and fixed the app’s rating by deleting over eight million reviews that didn’t represent genuine feedback.
Google has removed millions of reviews to bring TikTok’s rating back to 4.4 on the Play Store. The company justifies this is a correction action to curb spam abuse, as reported by TechCrunch. What caused the outrage, you ask?
The YouTube vs TikTok debate saw fans of a certain well-known YouTuber take aim at the short-video platform. Users also discovered and shared derogatory content, which saw creators (such as Faizal Siddiqui) promoting acid attack, domestic violence, child abuse, and more.
This caused an outrage against TikTok, which is nothing new for netizens in India, and many of them swarmed to the Play Store to give 1-star ratings to the app. Social media platforms like Twitter saw hashtags like #BlockTikTok and #DeleteTikTok trend hours on end.
Several publications were able to pull screenshots showing the difference in the total number of reviews. The app had over 28 million reviews with a 1.2 rating a few days back but now it has 20 million reviews with a 4.4 rating. It will be interesting to see if Google keeps at it and individually removes spam reviews over the coming days.
As TechCrunch rightly points out outrage against apps on the Play Store is nothing new for Indians. Snapdeal has to feel the brunt of the netizen’s wrath a few years ago when it was Snapchat that was the culprit. CEO Evan Spiegel upset Indians with his remarks, labeling India as a poor country.
In light of recent events, a TikTok clone with a name well-known to every Indian has been doing quite well on the Play Store. Called Mitron, the app is a TikTok rip-off but has seen widespread adoption, with downloads crossing 5 lakh for one simple – it’s a ‘Made in India’ short video platform.
