As the TikTok ban could take effect at the end of the week, short of Supreme Court intervention, another ByteDance-owned app has climbed the rankings in the Apple App Store: Lemon8.
The app, which is No. 2 in the App Store, appears to be an amalgamation of several other popular social media platforms. It has photos that can be uploaded as a single image or a carousel of photos, like Instagram; videos that appeal to users’ specific sensibilities and interests, like TikTok; and an interface that allows users to interact with different types of content at once, like Pinterest.
“If those three apps came together and had a baby, it would be Lemon8,” said Jessica Maddox, an associate professor of digital media technology at the University of Alabama.
The law only mentions TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, by name. However, it also says any of ByteDance’s subsidiaries could be banned under the same law. That means a ban could be extended to Lemon8, but as of Monday, neither the company nor the U.S. government had addressed its future.
On TikTok, advertisements for Lemon8 appear to have ramped up leading up to the ban. TikTok has used traditional advertisements on its platform urging users to download it. TikTok has also sent notifications to its users suggesting they download Lemon8.
Some of TikTok’s mainstay users are posting to the platform as if it were TikTok. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In short, it feels like Lemon8 is waiting in the wings to take over if TikTok is immediately unusable after the ban goes into effect Sunday.
Here’s everything you need to know about Lemon8.
What is Lemon8?
Lemon8 is a “culture” platform, Maddox said, whose interface takes inspiration from a variety of popular social media websites, including Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok.
When users open the app, the platform says it is “powered by TikTok,” according to the login screen. It also prompts users to log in with their TikTok accounts. Users are also prompted to follow all of the people they followed on TikTok who have accounts on Lemon8.
Users will also select their interests and what they would like to see before they are taken to the -main feed, where they will see posts that include still images and videos. Once users click on posts, they can view the comment sections, which are a crucial aspect of the inside jokes and humor on TikTok.
When was it released?
Lemon8 debuted in the United States and the U.K. in February 2023. It was first released in Japan in May 2020. There, it was known as Sharee.
Roughly a month after its release in the United States, Lemon8 entered the list of the top 10 most downloaded apps in the Apple App Store, according to reports at the time. Usage surged after Congress grilled TikTok CEO Shou Chew about the platform’s safety.
What kind of content is on the platform?
When people create accounts on Lemon8, they are prompted to select their interests, which range from lifestyle and food to video games, music and movies.
Some of the content seems to be copy-pasted from TikTok. For example, the influencer Jasmine Chiswelll, who became popular on TikTok for her fashion content and her Marilyn Monroe-like style, posted a video on Lemon8 sharing “100 years of LIPSTICKS,” in which she shared swatches of nude lipsticks.
Chiswell shared the same video in 2023 on TikTok, where it was liked 1.5 million times. On Lemon8, it was liked fewer than 10,000 times.
Users can also share pictures. While TikTok has become a place where users can share still images and where massive trends have grown around the interface, still images shared with no music and just text feel more akin to content displayed on Instagram than on TikTok.
Instead of one piece of content at a time, as on TikTok’s “For You” page or Instagram’s main feed, users see two rows of content that they must select to view. The interface is similar to the TikTok search feature. It also resembles Pinterest’s mobile version.
Could Lemon8 be banned under the new law banning TikTok?
The short answer is: Yes.
That is according to Eric Goldman, associate dean for research, law professor and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law.
Goldman said the law does not allow for much wiggle room based on the way it is written.
“So long as ByteDance is owned by a ‘foreign adversary’ as defined in the statute, then its subsidiaries will be equally governed by the rules, Goldman said. “So I don’t see that as a really close case.”
He added: “I have problems with the ban. I have problems with its reach, but just as a matter of statutory interpretation, that doesn’t really seem that contestable.”
Goldman said that the law also allows a president to designate that an app is owned by a so-called foreign adversary and that therefore it would be subject to the same legal challenges as TikTok, which include being banned.
But just because it can be banned does not mean it necessarily will be banned.
How many people use Lemon8?
Data from the research firm SimilarWeb showed that Lemon8 had just over 1 million daily active users in the United States, according to The Associated Press. It had 12.5 million global monthly active users in December, the AP reported.
Maddox, who has been on the app since last year, said she has noticed an influx of users recently.
“I’ve been getting notifications from dozens of people every couple days who are following me on Lemon8,” she said. “There is a big push over there now, and I wonder if it will probably change what the algorithms are pushing.”
Because Lemon8’s user base is significantly smaller than TikTok’s, it is possible that ByteDance hopes the app will slip by possible censors unnoticed.
