As antitrust and regulatory scrutiny heats up for Meta, Alphabet, and other social media giants in Silicon Valley, some are beginning to wonder if the tide is ebbing on their reign. Whether it's Instagram's push towards reels and more video content to copy TikTok or the fact that Google is losing search among Gen Z to TikTok, it's clear that the Beijing-based firm has come to dominate the minds of everyone in Silicon Valley. “It’s obvious that, if they don’t make moves to arrest the flow of users from their platforms to TikTok, their investors will revolt and valuations will continue to fall,” writes the New Yorker.

• But TikTok is not without its own regulatory scrutiny. As we told you in June, nine Republican Senators sent a letter to the company's head raising concerns about data privacy.

• The CEO responded that the social media platform is working to transfer its US data onto Oracle's cloud servers, reports NBC News — which would separate American data and put it onto Silicon Valley-owned servers.

The Kardashians v. Instagram

As Meta has tried to turn Instagram into a TikTok clone in order to stem the outflow of users, the social media platform's diehards have balked at the shift. Late last month, sisters Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner (who have over 700 million followers combined) posted to the feed “Make Instagram Instagram Again.” The post continued “stop trying to be tiktok I just want to see cute photos of my friends.” It seemed to work, as Instagram head Adam Mosseri said, “we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup,” reports Platformer.

The Verdict

Big Tech has a lot on its plate right now: between ad revenues taking a hit over the last few months, regulatory scrutiny heating up, and TikTok's ascension to the top, the Valley is facing its biggest existential crisis in years.