Days after the US government challenged Facebook Inc’s growing power over social media in a Congressional hearing, the Trump administration handed the company a gift.
Late last week, the US president said he planned to shut down Facebook’s most formidable challenger: Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok. That threat sparked a panic among users that their digital clubhouse would soon be taken away or sold to Microsoft Corp – and sent many popular TikTokers racing to move their creative endeavours to Instagram, the rival mobile app owned by Facebook.