TikTok’s rival disappears from App Store

Since April 8 people have been complaining they cannot find the app. Bigo’s website only shows Apple’s notification saying “Application unavailable.”

Thanh Duy of HCMC wrote in an online technology community: “I have just reset my phone, and so I need to download Bigo again, but itis unavailable on both the App Store and website”.

But everything is normal for Singapore’s Bigo Live on Android.

It is one of the most downloaded apps in Vietnam, and had 400 million users in 150 countries at the end of 2022.

The Bigo user community speculated that the app violated Apple’s rules with offensive video content, leading to the removal. A leaked message from a group of Bigo content creators showed that Apple would impose heavier penalties for such content in future.

But according to Chinese news site Weixin, the App Store removal was due to violation of Apple’s advertising rules.

On April 10 the Vietnam Bigo Live fan page informed iOS users it was a “technical error.”

“The Bigo technical team is fixing the error and will notify the community as soon as possible when it is done.”

Bigo Live is an application launched in 2016 that allows users to livestream and receive gifts from viewers.

On its blog, it said its advantage is that anyone could livestream and not have to meet certain requirements as required by TikTok.

Kien Vu, a digital content expert, said: “Bigo focuses more on live-streaming, and came under scrutiny many times before … for carrying revealing and offensive images to attract viewers and make money.”

TikTok too faces similar criticisms.