In order to make the creator economy a fairer, TikTok has implemented new tools that allow users to properly credit their inspiration for their latest video, alongside giving credit to the original user who made the video in the first place.
In a similar fashion to how credit is applied for stitched and dueted videos, TikTok’s new crediting tools will place a tag directly in the description of the video, in a spot that it’s always visible even before the description box is expanded. This is even when they’re not replying to or stitching other videos on the app.
According to TikTok, these new tools will “better enable creator credit and equitable attribution for our creator community and content originators,” which in turn should mitigate some of the parasitic content-stealing that is commonplace on the ever-growing social media app.
Every trend has an origin story and we want to help recognize creators for their creativity and originality. Today, we're introducing new tools to better enable creator credit and equitable attribution for our community. More about the new beta features 👇https://t.co/kANIan8LXXMay 18, 2022
While these new crediting tools have the possibility to be a powerful force for good on TikTok, it remains to be seen whether or not this feature will be used by many of the app’s users.
As an entirely voluntary feature, it’s entirely possible, if not likely, that the parasitic creators who’re being targeted by these tools will simply opt not to use them as there is no incentive nor mandate for their use.
Anticipating that the new crediting tools won’t immediately be adopted by the app’s entire userbase, TikTok announced in the coming weeks they will be implementing additional prompts to encourage creators to credit, one of which will be an “educational pop-up that encourages and explains the importance of crediting.”
Ultimately, while these features may help to appropriately share credit across the app, TikTok is always going to struggle to properly embody the culture of crediting the original creators.
However, it's a good first start in taking on spam accounts that regard other viral videos of their own, and could help original accounts to further monetize their TikTok careers with more original videos.
