TikTok Pushes Users To Lemon8 As Ban Looms

TikTok has been pushing the platform's sister app, Lemon8, encouraging users to migrate via sponsored posts amid a looming ban. Axios reports: In the last few weeks, Lemon8 has been promoting its app to TikTok users through sponsored TikTok videos. In one sponsored post, TikTok user @miller.dailylife shares a video with a creator saying, 'TikTok actually has another backup app. It's called Lemon8... and it automatically signs you in with your TikTok so you can still keep the same TikTok name and things like that. And it's supposed to transfer your followers over.... Once you add Lemon8, it automatically pops up on your TikTok bio, so that people can just click on it. So, just so you guys know, now that they're trying to do this ban, if you want to have somewhere else to go where the government is not 100% controlling what we see, what we consume... Just go ahead and go on to Lemon8.'

In November, TikTok began informing users of its sister app, Lemon8, that beginning late that month Lemon8 would be powered by TikTok, and their TikTok usernames would also be used on Lemon8. 'Some of your data on TikTok will be used to power services on lemon8,' the notice says. 'Your Lemon8 profile link will be shown to your TikTok profile publicly by default,' it continues. 'You can choose not to show it by editing your TikTok profile.' Last March, Lemon8 jumped into the U.S. App Store's Top 10 list shortly after it launched in the U.S. It currently ranks as one of the top-ranking free apps on Apple's app store.

The report notes that the TikTok ban law also applies to other apps owned by TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance, like Lemon8. 'ByteDance could be betting that regulators and app store companies are so focused on TikTok that they won't pay attention to its other apps,' says Axios.

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