Skylight, a TikTok alternative built on open source technology, is benefiting from concerns that arose over TikTok U.S.’s change in ownership last week. The startup, a maker of a short-form, vertical video app similar to TikTok, says it has now topped over 380,000 users and is continuing to grow after a busy weekend.
Launched last year and backed by Mark Cuban and other investors, Skylight’s mobile app is built on the AT Protocol, the technology that also powers the decentralized X rival, Bluesky, which now has north of 42 million users.
Skylight, co-founded by CEO Tori White and CTO Reed Harmeyer, offers a built-in video editor, user profiles, support for likes, commenting, and sharing, and the ability for community curators to create custom feeds for others to follow.
The app now has over 150,000 videos uploaded directly to the platform. It can also stream videos from Bluesky because of its AT Protocol integration.
Harmeyer said Saturday that 1.4 million videos were played on the app the day before, up 3x over the past 24 hours. The app had also seen signups increase more than 150%. Other noteworthy stats include over a 50% increase in returning users, over 40% rise in video played on average, and over 100% increase in posts created.
This surge was likely triggered by concerns over TikTok’s change in ownership and its unfortunately timed technical glitches.
TikTok had announced on January 22 the establishment of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, designed to comply with Trump’s executive order requiring the company’s U.S. operations be sold to a group of American investors. TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance will now own less than 20% of the new entity.
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The deal was a result of increased tensions between the U.S. and China, which led to concerns that TikTok could be a threat to national security, both by collecting data on U.S. citizens and through algorithmic influence. Now, however, some of TikTok’s users are more worried about the new American investors and their allegiance to Trump.
Those concerns grew to a head when TikTok pushed out an updated privacy policy, which includes permission to track users’ GPS coordinates, among other things. Users also pointed to language in the privacy policy that said the app would track immigration status. Although that language was not new, and its inclusion has to do with adherence to state privacy laws, some users began encouraging people to delete the app.
While it’s unknown how many TikTok users actually followed through, what is clear is that some people sought out alternatives. Over the weekend, Skylight’s CEO Tori White said the app added around 20,000 new users and is continuing to grow. So far this January, the app has seen around 95,000 monthly active users.
White credited the app’s more open and customizable nature as the force behind its growth.
While Skylight has made notable gains, it’s still overshadowed by TikTok and its 200 million monthly active U.S. users. Still, Skylight’s founders believe their approach provides an opening for growth.
“We’ve seen what happens when one person dictates what’s pushed into people’s feeds,” White told TechCrunch. “Not only does it harm a creator’s connection with their followers, but the entire health of the platform. That’s why we built Skylight Social on open standards. We wanted creator and user power to be guaranteed by the technology. Not an empty promise, but an irrevocable right.”
