What is Triller? TikTok's newest competitor sees surge in users
Following months of controversy, numerous TikTok stars have announced they're jumping ship and moving to the new rival platform Triller.
Privacy and security concerns had Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson, Noah Beck, and Anthony Reeves reveal they will be moving to Triller, and they're asking their combined 50 million followers to join them on the new app.
Triller, which was created in LA, is a "music based maker app" according to Dazed, and it's already shot to number one on the App Store in 50 countries including the US, Australia, France, Britain and Italy.
Similar to TikTok, Triller lets you record yourself lip-synching or performing a song, however, the new app has an editing algorithm that editors the videos for you using "intelligent audio and facial analysis to decide when to cut".
Byte, another US-based video app created by one of Vine's co-founders has also seen an increase in new users
It comes as US President Donald Trump announced plans to ban TikTok in America. He revealed on August 1 that he could sign an executive order to ban the Chinese-owned app, revealing, "As far as TikTok is concerned, we're banning them from the United States."
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This is due to the concerns from US security officials claiming the app is being used by its Chinese owners to take personal data from Americans.
This has been denied by ByteDance, a Beijing-based tech company.
TikTok users Dixie D'Amelio, who has 32 million followers, and Addison Rae, who has 53.3 million followers, have asked their followers to follow them on Instagram and YouTube in the case that the app does get banned in the US.
According to the Washington Post, TikTok representatives said, "Protecting the privacy of our users’ data is of the utmost importance to TikTok. We have not, and would not, give it to the Chinese government."
India banned TikTok last month, also banning 58 other apps including WeChat. In Japan, they are considering banning the app and politicians in Australia are also contemplating doing the same.
Triller sues TikTok
Triller recently sued TikTok over a patent infringement. The suit claims that TikTok is infringing on Triller's patent on "systems and methods for creating music videos synchronized with an audio track."
Triller's patent credits co-founders David Leiberman and Samuel Rubin as the inventors and was filed in 2015 and granted in 2017.
Triller's patent describes a way to create videos syncing to audio, including instances where one or more video takes are captured while the audio plays.
They say that TikTok is infringing on this by allowing their users to stitch together multiple videos while using the same audio.
TikTok's "green screen video" effect is seen as infringing on their patent.
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