Douyin

But the platforms they thrived on have started to turn against them. Just a few weeks ago, WeChat and Douyin began suspending, removing, or restricting their accounts. While influencers on these platforms have been turning people’s anxiety into traffic and profits for a long time, the latest actions show how Chinese social platforms are trying to contain the damage before it goes too far.  The backlash started last month, as students angrily complained on social media about the superficiality of the courses, saying that…

Catch up with China 1. Sam Altman’s plan for a $7 trillion-worth semiconductor empire includes building dozens of chip fabrication plants with money from Middle East investors, then having the Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC run them. (Wall Street Journal $) 2. A former TikTok executive is suing the company for unlawfully firing her due to what they called a lack of “docility and meekness.” (Financial Times $) 3. If he’s reelected, Donald Trump is promising a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports. If that actually happens (big…

At the end of last month, I published an essay reflecting on how the prospects for anonymity online in China changed drastically last year. Following many smaller decisions that make posting anonymously more difficult, the largest blow came in October when all social media platforms in China demanded that certain users with large followings display their legal names. The government and the platforms argue that the new rule can help prevent online harassment and misinformation. While anonymity can be associated with…

TikTok’s fate hangs in the balance. But what is already clear is that the app has changed social media for good—and in a way that will make life harder for incumbent social apps. In less than six years TikTok has weaned the world off old-fashioned social-networking and got it hooked on algorithmically selected short videos. Users love it. The trouble for the platforms is that the new model makes less money than the old one, and may always do so. View…

China's cyberspace regulator said 1.4 million social media posts have been deleted following a two-month probe into alleged misinformation, illegal profiteering, and impersonation of state officials, among other "pronounced problems".The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said it had closed 67,000 social media accounts and deleted hundreds of thousands of posts between March 10 and May 22 as part of a broader "rectification" campaign. Since 2021, China has targeted billions of social media accounts in a bid to…

Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok, and internet giant Tencent have agreed to explore the joint promotion of short and long videos, in a thawing of frosty relations that has often been marked by lawsuits and public spats. Douyin, which like TikTok is owned by ByteDance, said in a statement it is now authorised to use Tencent Video content and rules about how secondary content can be generated have been clarified. Users of platforms in the Douyin Group including Douyin, Xigua Video and Toutiao will be able to create…

Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok parent company ByteDance, saw his personal fortune fall by $17 billion last year, according to a new Chinese ranking published Thursday.The reasons for the losses are unknown, but Zhang is still the second-richest entrepreneur in the world under the age of 40, with wealth valued at $37 billion, according to statistics published by the Chinese firm Hurun. Ahead of him is Mark Zuckerberg, boss of US tech giant Meta -- the owner of Facebook and Instagram -- whose fortune was estimated by…

Beijing's market regulator recently visited ByteDance's Douyin video hosting service to look into the company's livestreaming e-commerce business and discuss how to prevent over-charging, a statement, published on Thursday on the regulator's official WeChat account, said. The regulator's visit to Douyin - the Chinese version of TikTok - comes at a time when Beijing has pledged to support a private sector reeling from the state-imposed COVID restrictions that were lifted in December, as well as a regulatory crackdown in…

When the crackdown on video games happened in 2021, the social media industry was definitely spooked, because many Chinese people were already comparing short-video apps like Douyin to video games in terms of addictiveness. It seemed as though the sword of Damocles could drop at any time.  That possibility seems even more certain now. On February 27, the National Radio and Television Administration, China’s top authority on media production and consumption, said it had convened a meeting to work on “enforcing the…

In the dead of night on a bridge in southern China, around two dozen livestreamers sat crooning and chatting into microphones, their identical ring lights spaced a few metres apart in glowing rows. The broadcasters gather in spots like this in the city of Guilin most nights in hope of standing out to users scrolling through reams of livestreams on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, where viewers can donate to their favourite streamers. "There are too many indoor livestreamers," said 27-year-old…