Black-Owned Fanbase App Rises in Popularity Amid Looming TikTok Ban and Meta Content Shifts [Video]

With TikTok possibly leaving the United States for good and Meta rolling back necessary DEI measures, the Fanbase app is growing in popularity.

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On Saturday, the fully Black-owned app run by Isaac Hayes III achieved number 42 among all apps in the Apple IOS store. Hayes expressed his gratitude in a video on Instagram while encouraging others to check out Fanbase.

“As far as I know, this is the only independent founded social media platform that I know of that’s there,” Hayes pointed out. “I’m actually having a little moment here right now.”

For social networking apps as a whole, Fanbase was even higher, sitting at number eight on the charts, which was shared by Earn Your Leisure.

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This burst in growth comes at a pivotal time when social media users are being forced to re-evaluate their app usage. In addition to getting rid of several DEI measures, Meta has also updated its content moderation policies. The company doing away with third-party fact-checking and instead, moving toward community notes. This switch allows for more hate speech, particularly aimed at members of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Most TikTok users are now panicking, though many are turning to Lemon8, which is owned by the same parent company, ByteDance. Lemon8, another video-sharing app with similar features, will also face a ban when TikTok is officially deleted from the U.S. app store on January 19th if ByteDance cannot secure a new buyer. Unfortunately, it seems that the company is not looking to sell. This only further opens the lane for Fanbase to flourish.