Skylight, a TikTok alternative built on open source technology, is benefiting from concerns that arose over TikTok’s recent change in ownership in the United States. The startup, which makes 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. This is the same technology that powers the decentralized X rival Bluesky, which now has over 42 million users. Skylight was co-founded by CEO Tori White and CTO Reed Harmeyer. The app offers a built-in video editor, user profiles, support for likes, commenting, and sharing, and allows 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 on Saturday that 1.4 million videos were played on the app the day before, representing a threefold increase over the past 24 hours. The app had also seen sign-ups increase more than 150 percent. Other noteworthy stats include over a 50 percent increase in returning users, over 40 percent rise in videos played on average, and over 100 percent 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 an 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 percent of the new entity.
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 the former president.
Those concerns grew 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. White stated that they have seen what happens when one person dictates what’s pushed into people’s feeds, harming a creator’s connection with their followers and the health of the platform. That is why they built Skylight Social on open standards, aiming to guarantee creator and user power through the technology itself as an irrevocable right.