TikTok faces one other sale deadline Saturday, and except a US purchaser intervenes — or President Donald Trump extends the deadline once more — the app might disappear for US customers. If the ban goes into impact, TikTok would not be the one app to vanish: TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, may very well be caught within the crossfire.Read extra: A VPN Alone Probably Won’t Bypass TikTok Bans. Here’s WhyLemon8 is owned by ByteDance, the identical guardian firm that owns TikTok. It’s one of many high Lifestyle apps in Apple’s App Store, and it has greater than 10 million downloads within the Google Play retailer.”Lemon8 is a lifestyle community focused app powered by TikTok, where you can discover and share authentic content on a variety of topics such as beauty, fashion, travel, food, and more,” the app’s description reads in each shops.Here’s what you want to learn about Lemon8.Note: I reached out to ByteDance for this story, and the corporate didn’t reply for remark.What is Lemon8? Lemon8 posts can comprise textual content to assist label objects within the publish. Screenshot by Zach McAuliffe/CNETLemon8 is a video- and photo-sharing platform that eschews the vertical-scrolling format of TikTok in favor of a Pinterest board-style format. But what Lemon8 and TikTok do have in widespread is that each have Following and For You tabs to point out you posts from creators you observe and posts the app thinks you’ll like.Lemon8’s content material is break up into six subject tabs, plus a seventh tab known as All. The different tabs are Fashion, Beauty, Food, Wellness, Travel and Home. These tabs might be discovered throughout the highest of your display, and tapping into these tabs reveals you really helpful and urged posts. Posts might be swipeable picture collections like in Instagram, or TikTok-style movies. Some creators add textual content to their images to label clothes or a product. Some can even embody the worth of the merchandise within the textual content. How is Lemon8 completely different from TikTok and different apps?Lemon8 is completely different from different apps when it comes to what’s posted and the way it’s offered.Lemon8 has loads of influencer adverts and product suggestions. It’s troublesome to inform what’s and is not sponsored content material, and this seems to be the norm throughout the app. TikTok additionally has sponsored content material, however normally these are marked as such within the bottom-left nook. Memes aren’t catching on in Lemon8. Screenshot by Zach McAuliffe/CNETThere aren’t loads of memes or jokes on Lemon8 in comparison with different apps, both. You can discover memes on Lemon8, however numerous hashtags related to “memes,” like “funnymemes” and “catmemes,” have fewer than 1 million views (versus tons of of hundreds of thousands on Instagram). This may very well be as a result of Lemon8 remains to be catching on within the US, however my suspicion is Lemon8 is not meant for memes. It’s meant to be extra of a guidebook that can assist you obtain a sure life-style or aesthetic. There’s additionally loads of writing in Lemon8. For instance, publish captions would possibly embody directions for a recipe or a deeper breakdown of an outfit. TikTok captions can have helpful data, however these captions are extra about connecting posts to hashtags to get extra views and do not essentially add new data to the TikTok publish. Lemon8 makes use of captions in the same technique to Instagram posts, however Lemon8 captions have one key distinction from Instagram: templates. Lemon8 templates will help you rapidly make, or provide you with an thought of what to incorporate in, captions. Screenshot by Zach McAuliffe/CNETLemon8 enables you to use templates to your posts that can assist you rapidly format and to provide you an thought of what to caption your publish. There are caption templates for style, buying finds, magnificence, meals and journey.Lemon8 jogs my memory of a mashup between the magazines Martha Stewart Living, Muscle & Fitness and Travel + Leisure. You can discover some helpful suggestions in Lemon8 that can assist you obtain a desired aesthetic or discover some trip inspiration, however it’s not clear what’s and is not an advert.What are folks saying about Lemon8?People’s response to Lemon8 is seemingly constructive to this point. One TikTok creator posted a video calling Lemon8 “Pinterest, but interactive.” Another stated Lemon8 is a mix of Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok.However, this positivity may very well be artificially inflated. ZDNet reviews that many TikTok posts about Lemon8 have described the app with comparable language, making some consider ByteDance paid these creators. And some Lemon8 creators’ claims make this principle sound extra viable. One Lemon8 creator advised Insider that ByteDance paid them to publish on the app. Two different Lemon8 creators confirmed Insider emails that outlined the app’s cost construction. Who owns Lemon8?ByteDance, the Chinese tech firm that owns TikTok, additionally owns Lemon8. According to ZDNet, ByteDance is positioning Lemon8 to be an Instagram rival as extra customers cease utilizing, or abandon, Meta’s app. According to the Wall Street Journal, a leaked inside memo from Meta confirmed that Instagram engagement was declining. ByteDance executives may very well be hoping to capitalize on this by giving Instagram customers an alternate app within the type of Lemon8. And whereas Lemon8 was launched globally in 2020, the app’s latest progress would possibly present ByteDance’s gamble is paying off.Will Lemon8 be banned alongside TikTok?Since Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, which additionally owns TikTok, it is attainable that the app will likely be banned alongside TikTok on April 5. The legislation requiring the sale of TikTok may very well be utilized usually to different apps which are owned and operated by ByteDance and its subsidiaries. When TikTok shutdown operations within the US in January, Lemon8 was shutdown alongside the app. If TikTok shuts down once more, Lemon8 doubtless will as nicely.Should you obtain Lemon8?Even with a shutdown looming, Lemon8 is free, so you’ll be able to obtain and check out the app now earlier than the sale deadline. Just know the app’s posts resemble tutorial guides greater than memes to share, and lots of posts really feel like commercials. What’s Lemon8’s privateness coverage? Lemon8’s journey tab may give you inspiration to your subsequent getaway. Screenshot by Zach McAuliffe/CNETMost of Lemon8’s privateness coverage appears commonplace for social media apps. It states Lemon8 collects private and placement data to give you a greater app expertise. Some collected data consists of your IP handle and shopping historical past. But a part of the app’s privateness coverage would possibly increase eyebrows.”The personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live,” the coverage reads. The firm has servers around the globe, in keeping with the coverage, so your data may very well be saved in any of them.This is completely different from how Lemon8’s sister app TikTok shops some consumer’s knowledge. The firm shops US-based consumer knowledge in Oracle servers. TikTok CEO Shou Chew stated ByteDance staff in China can entry this knowledge, however with “robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval” overseen by a US-based safety crew. For extra on the TikTok ban, this is what to know concerning the Supreme Court’s choice, this is what might occur subsequent and listed here are different apps customers are flocking to.
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