Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, health professionals and police use TikTok videos to disseminate important messages.
By Nikita Arora
Meerut: TikTok has come to the rescue in the time of coronavirus pandemic, helping the police and health professionals across the globe to spread useful messages like washing hands, wearing masks and staying inside homes, in the form of videos.
Shivani Wani, a TikTok user studying in Dublin, recently used social media to recreate a viral video of an Oregan doctor.
She said, “It is quite fun recreating videos. The Oregon doctor whose video I recreated is a Tiktok star now. If you look at these videos, it somehow fills you with much-needed zeal and positivity. Everybody is already stressed about coronavirus and in times like these the doctors engaging in this activity really pumps you up.”
Apart from the nurses and doctors, the police are also using Tiktok to grab the attention of the people. Kerala police, for instance, made an instructional video of them dancing to a peppy number to show how to wash hands. Other states too are now taking inspiration from them and recreating the same.
Prashanth N., from the traffic police department, Bangalore, said, “The reason we do all this is mostly about gaining people’s attention and spreading information about issues like wearing masks or washing hands. Using channels such as Tiktok enable us a greater coverage than we would otherwise not be able to achieve. Things are tough, so creating stuff like this keeps one inspired.”
A report released by Android stated that the application (Tiktok) has over one billion downloads on Android devices ever since the lockdown was announced. While some are using it to spread across important messages, the others are exploiting its use. For instance, quite recently, a Tiktok user from Madhya Pradesh has created a video about how one can believe in God’s strength and not in mask use. He was eventually found positive for coronavirus.
MP: TikTok user Samir Khan who mocked face mask in video tests positive for Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/XVoAWBMoww
— Akash Modani (@akash_modani) April 11, 2020
Raj Dayal, a product engineer, said, “Tiktok undoubtedly has grown over time and has a really large audience base in India. People will continue to use it as per their preferences, that is, either to spread positive messages or to misuse it. It is now up to the company to figure out how are they going to surveil the content that goes out there. They can look for ways to restrict harmful videos. .”
