After the sudden popularity of a copycat app, Tik Tok now has to contend with fresh competition from Facebook’s Collab.

Facebook’s Collab app is heavily inspired by Tik Tok, allowing users to mix and match original videos and music to produce and share short videos. Collab is currently available on iOS in the US and Canada on invite-only Beta mode. Facebook has rushed to release an in-progress version for the lockdown-stricken population and a full rollout is expected very soon.

The app doesn’t require any experience in music to use; it allows for three separate short-form recordings to be stitched together into one video. It can be videos of various instruments or even those borrowed from other users by swiping and discovering content that can complement and complete one’s own work. The finished content is published on the app and is now free for others to watch and mix and match further. You will even be able to share this content on other platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram after it has been posted on Collab.

Tik Tok has not been having an easy year, despite its massive popularity in India. It has close to 200 million active monthly users from the country which also accounted for almost a quarter of its new downloads globally in April 2020. But this has been falling. In addition to falling marketing and advertising budgets due to the pandemic, the app has also been facing a lot of criticism for its content moderation. Users have been sharing many Tik Tok videos that highlight the rampant sexism, racism, abuse, and other troubling content that have been allowed to go unchecked on the app.

Other controversies like Youtube vs TikTok have kept matters on the boil. On top of this, the anti-Chinese sentiment was also simmering in the background, waiting to be unleashed on the app and the China-based company that runs this. All this backlash is manifesting itself in the lows ratings the app received after many users from India downvoted the app on the Google Play Store and its ratings slipped from 4.5 to 1.2.

This also explains the startling success of a copycat app called Mitron, which was launched by an Indian student and recorded 50 lakh downloads in a single month.

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