New reports from The NYT recently highlighted a major change across the TikTok app in regards to Hashtags.

The leading social media giant claims users will no longer be able to look for particular hashtags through searches carried out with the platform’s Creative Center tools. And as one can expect, it is bound to affect creators’ planning and way of garnering greater reach for the masses.

Therefore, those who wished to attain more insights into popular trends by exploring them through this means would no longer be able to do so, and it’s a major letdown for fans of the app, particularly data researchers and journalists.

The app’s tools found in the Creative Center are designed to allow for the chance to really attain the best insights about viral content and trends that are designated as invaluable when planning new campaigns. However, the platform has rolled back the hashtag search feature as it had major concerns linked to data usage that gave rise to greater forms of censorship through the app.

A statement on this matter was published by the leading media outlet, The New York Times, which claims the firm’s critics really gauged how the app just cannot accurately regulate trending content that gets massive views and engagement, thanks to such tools. It also mentioned how the Bytedance-owned company has great influences coming from the Chinese capital city of Beijing which impacts which posts can be published on it.

So the tool arising in the form of a magnifying glass icon can no longer be used for searching trending hashtags.

New TikTok Creative Center page for hashtags.

With the removal, the app has generated more comments on this subject to the NYT about how it’s designed to focus more on other things like sharing content featured as the top 100 trending hashtags coming from various sectors.

But is the latest change or update really astonishing? Well, critics say no! After all, the app has been called out many times in the past, not to mention great scrutiny coming forward from the US for having ties with Chinese Government officials who monitor both content and users.

TikTok has tried really hard how it’s just not in favor of any kind of political conversations as it hopes to keep itself from such ordeals. Meanwhile, other reports gave rise to how CCP likes to take extra interest in the app.

But if and when it can, TikTok likes to steer clear of the act. But some might think of this as a means of censorship. Getting rid of hashtags for searches will ensure content is more aligned with its goals of being a true market research endeavor. Meanwhile, others might counter that the app is designed to just dive down deep to get insights in terms of research for user activity, reducing more scrutiny of the popular platform.

That is there, no doubt about it. But there are also many correct arguments about the real use of such tools and how you might view the whole scenario.

In any case, plenty of marketers claim that it gets rid of one search item from the app’s Creative Tool Center but that does not mean there are no other options up for grabs that might be of great value for the sake of market analysis.

So as you can see, it all depends on how the situation is looked at. For creators, it might be a loss but for marketers, more options or tools still remain.

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