The social network TikTok, whose popularity is exploding with containment, announced Thursday a donation of nearly 230 million euros to support healthcare workers, teachers and other professionals affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The application, which belongs to the Chinese technology company ByteDance, will allocate more than 130 million to its "fund to support health heroes", according to an online statement.
This fund will distribute them to relevant organizations, such as the Red Cross, with a focus on providing masks and protective equipment "to hospitals in India, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea and the United States, between other heavily affected countries ”.
Over 800 million users
The short video platform, hitherto more of a playground for children and teenagers, is now arousing the interest of adults and celebrities in search of distractions. The app had 800 million users in January (according to DataReportal), and was downloaded 65 million times in March, according to the specialist site SensorTower .
"Times are serious, but on TikTok there is still joy and inspiration," said Alex Zhu, the group's president. "We are determined to play our part in the global surge of support (for people affected by the health and economic crisis)".
Artists, nurses, educators…
TikTok plans to allocate more than 45 million euros to groups "representative of the various communities that use the app", such as artists, nurses or educators. These include supporting families who usually depend on school meals or musicians who have lost their sources of income since the performance halls were closed.
TikTok's donations come after a series of similar announcements from big tech companies. Google, Facebook, Netflix, as well as bosses from Microsoft, Amazon and Twitter have announced their support during this period of health crisis.
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