SUMMARY
TikTok’s rating on Google Play Store dropped to an all-time low of 1.2 stars from 4.7 stars
Google removed more than 6 Mn reviews which helped TikTok’s rating to improve to 1.6
Google is removing these reviews as part of its review bombing policy
After a rough fortnight, the Google Play Store rating of Bytedance-owned social media platform TikTok is finally improving, majorly due to a policy of the Google-owned application downloading platform, according to experts.
Last week, the Google Play store rating of TikTok dropped to an all-time low of 1.2 stars from 4.7 stars in no time as the short video sharing platform got involved in two major controversies.
The first controversy came along with a video by TikTok influencer Faizal Siddiqui, in which he is seen in a clip allegedly glorifying acid attack. In the second incident, Siddiqui’s brother Amir Siddiqui compared the content created by TikTok and YouTube influencers.
This got a response from YouTuber Ajey Nagar, known as CarryMinati. The video was about to become one of the most-watched non-music videos on YouTube before it was taken down after complaints about seemingly homophobic comments against Amir. It led to another intense YouTube Vs TikTok debate.
After these, hashtags pressing the ban of TikTok got traction on microblogging platform Twitter. Meanwhile, other YouTube influencers also provoked their followers to join the momentum against TikTok. As a result, there was a flood of negative reviews and poor ratings for TikTok on Google Play Store.
Google Helps TikTok To Get Breathing Ground
However, Google took cognizance of the fact that there is something wrong if millions of people are trying to influence the popularity of TikTok at the same time. According to experts, Google treats this as review bombing and removes these ratings and reviews in case they are found to be crooked.
In a tweet, digital marketer Nobert Elekes said that Google deleted over a million TikTok reviews overnight which improved the ratings of the social media platform on the Google Play Store. Last week, Elekes had written in a Tweet, “India is about to destroy two viral things – Coronavirus and TikTok.”
Apparently, Google deleted over a million TikTok reviews overnight, that's why the rating increased from 1.2 to 1.6 stars. pic.twitter.com/pDylX8BwcT
— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) May 22, 2020
Currently, Google Play Store is having 22 Mn reviews for TikTok. This means that Google has so far removed more than 6 Mn reviews as TikTok had over 28 Mn reviews when it was rated 1.2 stars on Google Play Store.
As of now, Google has not issued any statement on the removal of these reviews but its actions are now surely helping TikTok to regain popularity.
