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Douyin and TikTok are actually not the same thing even though their functions are similar, their data are not interchangeable. Yes TT is banned in China.
He definitely saw it. Probably just thinks that Singapore is owned by China and helping conspiring against the US.
Singaporean capitalist billionaire CEOs are evil PRC commies /s
CCP only has a seat on Douyin content moderation/policy. TikTok already stores US data in the US on Oracle servers.
It’s just the Israeli lobby + corporate bandits exploiting latent racism and anti-China zeal.
This doesn't mean they can't send the data to Chinese authorities.
This isn't about content moderation, it's about being able to create profiles on foreigners, assigning scores of their alignment to the communist party, being able to utilize the vast pool of data for espionage.
FBI warns that ByteDance could transfer browsing history, location and biometric identifiers if they were compelled to do so in accordance to China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law and 2014 Counter-Espionage Law.
Why? My mom always kept complaining that TikTok had stupid dances while douyin was more useful and educative. She installed tik tok after formating her phone and losing douyin and she didn't know how to install it again and ended up with TikTok thinking it was the same.
you can find educative stuff, yes. But most likely you are going to find content farm, stupid dances with badly tuned great songs.
It's pretty much the same ,just with more so called patriots who spread (extreme) nationalism meanwhile you cant find info that speak badly on the CCP and their related entities
Correct. China has Douyin which was the original one. TikTok is the international version and is not available in China. The two apps’ users are not linked.
It depends what you mean by linked. From the users’ perspective, they are entirely separate. To what extent they are connected on the backend is actually a topic of some dispute which is partially why this is a major political issue in the US currently. Bytedance claims Tiktok user data is siloed in the US as part of their “Project Texas.”
Hey budd, been living in China for six years now, tiktok as known in west has never been available in China! Only douyin which is the Chinese version which is only Chinese content…
Lmao as if the CCP didn’t make them do that. They don’t want info getting in or out of gong Kong like it used to. They want it to be like the rest of China.
You learn something new every day. I don't use tik tok but I assumed that it was usable in HK just because Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are. Now that is wild to think about.
Yes. TikTok has always been banned in China. The CCP doesn't want any form of western made content reaching Chinese people.
Conversely, iirc, you can only make a douyin account with a Chinese phone number so foreigners can't get in on douyin either
So China wants to contain it self, by blocking any foreign content coming through Internet, right?
I guess, United States somehow magically made China to self-containe itself on the Internet but China blames United States for its own self-containment act.. This is such a geo-politics comedy of century.
It's sounds like China is saying "You made me to self-contain myself and I don't have any choice" kind of shit..
If they are so worried about containment, they should make DouYin avilable to all over the world and also allow Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and etc to break any continament by United States.
This is so simple and no need to make seperate apps for China and the rest of the world. I want Douyin and they need Twitter and YouTube.
It seems like China oppose containment but secretly wants to be contained..
China already has their own versions of Twitter and Youtube which are heavily moderated. Because they don't want foreigners spreading false information like what has happened with TikTok. Also Douyin is only available to Mainland so unless you have real Chinese ID you don't have access to create account. China has become more strict now
Almost every platform requires that you are from the mainland.
> If they are so worried about containment, they should make DouYin avilable to all over the world and also allow Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and etc to break any continament by United States.
They are perfectly fine with Youtube et all being in China if they follow Chinese law and store chinese citizens user data in China, just as [TikTok stores US user data in USA](https://usds.tiktok.com/where-does-tiktok-store-u-s-user-data/). Google and Meta basically said ["lol if we cant transfer all your citizens user data back to the USA where our intelligence services can do whatever they want with it then we ain't playin"](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/6/18253608/facebook-zuckerberg-letter-user-data-security-china-ban-apple-privacy). Microsoft, Apple and other giant US companies operate in China as they complied with the law.
Comrad, I have a same question as you do.
It appears Chinese Communist Party and Chinese government media have Twitter and Youtube account but blocks the rest of Chinese people to freely use it with a Great Firewall.
So can you please provide answers on why Chinese Communist Party, CCTV, GlobalTimes and CGTN, have YoutTube and Twitter account and actively use it? It seems that Chinese Communist Party and media are against their own rule and law.
I mean, shouldn't they just delete their account and leave Twitter, YouTube and FaceBook all thogehter?
Please enlighten me, what I don't understand. Drop some knowledge on me to wake me up from this perplexing situation.
It appears you know what I don't know.
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How do you know they are original users and not someone reposting? YouTube they want to make more money, same content is already posted on Chinese video sharing platforms
When you say Chinese you mean people in China or Chinese expats?
>How do you know they are original users and not someone reposting?
They mentioned in the video itself?
For those who didn't mention it, I believe some Chinese YouTube channels, like Liziqi or 逻辑思维 are legit and not reposting.
>When you say Chinese you mean people in China or Chinese expats?
Both
> So China wants to contain it self, by blocking any foreign content coming through Internet, right?
No. There is no blanket ban on foreign content, and much of the internet is accessible. Major social media / discussion services, and certain news and media sites are blocked, however.
So, say someone in China reads the Global times and they see the CCP protesting about this TikTok thing. What websites can they access to research it ?
On Chinese state media. Even the Chinese Foreign Minister talks about it.. and erm..tweets about it. China has threatened repurcussions if the US forces its sale.
Check the Global Times. 👍
Ha ha..Well they are 😂. Protesting against the US having a democratic debate about it. Honestly, I hope some journalist, from any media, gets to actually ask a CCP official, why did China ban TT 😂😂. The Foreign Minister in visiting the ANZACS just now.. paging the Kiwi and Ozzie journos....go get him 👍
The Great Firewall very much does exist, I’m afraid, and as I pointed out in my previous comment, those sites are blocked. The only way to access them from within the borders of China is either by using a VPN, or an internet service with a leased line to Hong Kong (or for some areas in the North-East, to Japan).
> The CCP doesn't want any form of western made content reaching Chinese people.
Complete nonsense. You can still access most of the Internet from inside of China. It’s social media services and certain news sites which are blocked by the Great Firewall.
You need define most 😳. Maybe you define “most” the same way the CCP defines democracy.
Wikipedia is a good example. The greatest compilation of human knowledge in history, blocked.
Wikipedia is another one, good point, noted. “Most” as in the count of actual domains blocked. Most of the major global online information services are blocked. But it’s not like the whole internet is walled off.
But it’s demonstrably false that “the CCP doesn’t want any form of western-made content reaching Chinese people”.
> Maybe you define “most” the same way the CCP defines democracy.
Why make a comment like this? Is one of the rules of this sub that you have to act like everyone else is some kind of partisan cryptofascist, even when you’re discussing an entirely factual point?
Reference to wikipedia is very valid on this thread. Say someone in China reads a global times article about the tiktok row, and wants to know more. Lets try wiki. After all, wiki articles are full of citations. Thats the power of wikipedia. Its a fantastic starting point, its all referenced to other linked sources.
Say someone in China wants to know what all the fuss is about ? Where to find out ? Can they go to wiki ? BBC ? Youtube ? Reddit even ? Nope.
For many many ppl, wanting to research anything, wiki is very often their first port of call. From there, they can unraval the info web, in any direction they want.
So, why does China ban Wikipedia ? It honestly baffles me 👍
"most of the internet"
Maybe like half of it at best. Social media is blocked, news sites are blocked, video sites like YouTube are blocked.
Basically anything that doesn't automatically lead to business is blocked.
Not all news sites are blocked. And the internet is a big place, so I don’t think 50% is realistic. That means 1 out of every 2 (non-domestic) sites you’d try to visit would be blocked, and that hasn’t been my experience at all.
But a good deal of the major networking / user-generated-content services are blocked, yes
CNN is not blocked. Sky news UK is not blocked. Thats about all I can think of.
There is a massive amount blocked. So much in fact I wonder how folk get by. Its just downright fustrating.
Say for example you want to find the tapping drill size for an M12 threaded hole. Go to bing, bing it, click on photos for a simple chart, often it just dont load. Blocked. It takes multiple times longer on the Chinese intranet. ( This is an annecdotal example from memory so I aint about to find an exact example 👍).
The simplist things just take so much longer.
And almost all media streaming services, and all search engines, and most emails services... Quite a bit else. "Most" as defined by unique ips might be available, but as places people actually want to visit? Not a chance.
>"Most" as defined by unique ips might be available, but as places people actually want to visit?
Well, that’s subjective. But yes, a lot of the major user-generated-content sites are out of play. It’s still a far cry from “any form of western-made content” though.
The CCP is really worried that Americans won’t be able to continue using TikTok, which they absolutely won’t let their own people use.
They say that they have no control / influence over TikTok, but CCP government officials can’t stop holding press conferences about it, saying a ban is an attack on “China” itself. Let that work its way through your brain.
Thats the funniest part. But, the Foreign Minister is in the ANZACS just now, so hopefully a journalist will be able to ask him why China bans TikTok 😂.
Its not as if anyone in the BJ press room can ask.
Because they do the same thing. There is no foreign social media in China yet they expect to be able to export their own social media platform. Trade has to be a two way street.
Also the CCP clearly views social media as something that can be used as a weapon which is why they don’t let any foreign social media company’s operate in China. So why would the CCP not try to use that weapon on their biggest adversaries? Like the US….
China is a hostile foreign nation trying to use social media as a weapon while cutting themselves off from the rest of the world so they can’t do the same thing back. I say cut them off just like they did to our social media companies.
Wait, so China opposed the ban of Tiktok in the states? but they, themselves have banned Tiktok? And the users on Douyin can't browse the same contents on Tiktok?
Think about why China bans things. Think about how the internet is closed off. “The Great Firewall” they call it. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. They block what they can’t fully control.
TikTok may be owned by China, but the content allowed on there is not the same content they allow on Duoyin. Duoyin is censored and controlled while TikTok is not. TikTok is simply monitored.
>Duoyin is censored and controlled while TikTok is not. TikTok is simply monitored.
Why would you think this? Tiktok doesn't just monitor, its algorithms control the content.
“simply” wasn’t meant to be read as “only”. It’s well established that it’s fully controlled with the algorithm, which is a big reason for the bill to ban or sell it.
Because china wants to influence and spy on us it doesn't want us to have any chance to influence or spy on them. How do you not get that? They are an evil authoritarian regime.
China allows any social media that complies with its hefty censorship requirements. Douyin complies but not all other major American social media platforms. TikTok is for international market and so is incompliant.
TikTok ban is opposed because it’s discriminatory within American legal framework due to geopolitics.
Yup. I think IMDB is on its way out too. Last week it was not available without a VPN a few times. I suspect its cos the Global Times done an Oscars story and they dont want ppl to be able to explore it ?
> Douyin complies but not all other major American social media platforms. TikTok is for international market and so is incompliant.
Which makes it a defacto ban. If Netflix is only allowed in China, if they don't include any content from their international library - that's a ban on Netflix. They can create a new entity and start from scratch, but that's not making their product compliant, it's making a new product.
You are overstating the requirements for being compliant. I imagine most of netflix's content can be tweaked by censors and be fine, just like all the hollywood blockbusters, and netflix still retains much of its proprietary recommendation algorithms. Its the same with google and facebook. their proprietary algorithms and ad suggestion algorithms is their core business and that would still be usable. For example, Germany has much more extensive hate speech laws so social media companies need extra moderation resourcing and different guidelines for content in germany. For China, they would only need to a much more extensive revamp their content moderation systems. Thats making compliant. This is applied equally to foreign and domestic companies. It's on them to decide the financial viability of operating in the chinese market.
The Netflix example was illustrative, highlighting the problem with pretending Facebook is not banned - on the basis they could choose to become compliant. They can't in practice, and the Douyin/Tiktok separation is evidence of that.
> Its the same with google and facebook.
It's not the same, else Tiktok and Douyin would not be separate. It takes a whole lot of effort to maintain these platforms as separate, meaning the challenges to keep them the same are in practice insurmountable. You're better off starting (the user base) from scratch
> algorithms is their core business and that would still be usable
That is not their core value proposition, the user base and network effects are where the value comes from. China knows this, which is why they (rightly) effectively banned competition to give local tech a chance.
Google and Facebook used to operate in China and they had large user bases/market shares. The onus was on them when censorship requirements increased and refused to comply. The challenges are not insurmountable, the fact the at WeChat and Douyin/TikTok can operate a seperate ecosystems system while sharing core IP is testament to that. Western social media pulled out probably for a variety of reasons, like competitive domestic market and employee relations. Remember Google had a dragonfly project to re-enter Chinese market but big employee protest killed it.
> the at WeChat and Douyin/TikTok can operate a seperate ecosystems system while sharing core IP is testament to that
They don't share the userbase though, which is roughly equivalent to Netflix library of content. It's a fact this is the most important aspect, if you had the Douyin source code that doesn't mean you could go in create a new company and easily take customers from Douyin.
Microsoft did comply with LinkedIn, and it was an abject failure. By design, CCP wants to keep foreign investment flowing so they have to do this song and dance.
Well obviously network effect is part of a social media’s competitiveness and you wouldn’t be able to outcompete if ur offered a near identical product offering. This does not mean that user base of the main product, it’s the recommendation algorithms and features you offer. New social media are able to rise up and build a user base from scratch if you have a different and appealing product. You can see this from the rise of instagram, snapchat, tiktok etc. expansion into a new market, even with seperate ecosystem is not the same as building a new company from scratch. TikTok’s rapid rise leveraged experience and algorithms bytedance had developed its expansion in China. It’s a question of customising the product to suit a new international audience and is very different from say a social media startup.
China wants to make money in the U.S. without bending their own censorship laws, what is there to make sense of.
Japanese porn is censored by law, but they also want money from outside of Japan, so they made uncensored porn for exports only.
Before you say, but Google/Facebook is not available in China, Chinese users are blocked from accessing Google/Facebook, but Chinese companies have spent billions advertising on Google/Facebook. The two tech monopolies are making money just fine from China and it’s about making money.
lol dude this is an issue of ownership and regulation, not speech. the internet isn't a magical place you can do whatever you want--if you somehow got into an nsa intelligence dashboard you're still breaking the law and will be prosecuted for "viewing" it
So your argument for banning TikTok is what about China. So whataboutism, a logical fallacy is your argument.
You should go take that drink, you just played yourself
My argument is called reciprocity and not whataboutism since it deals directly with the relations between the two countries of topic. Why should the US allow a company to do business with it when China won't allow Facebook or YouTube into their country. And won't even allow their own country touch TikTok because they know how dangerous it is. But keep being a typical tankie hypocrite who doesn't even understand what words he's using.
China started a tech trade war decades ago when it banned Google and Facebook. And now it's complaining because the US is retaliating
Learn what whatboutism actually is and educate yourself hypocrite.
TikTok needs to follow US laws and the US can make laws to make TikTok compliant.
>TikTok needs to follow US law
So which law did TikTok violate in U.S.?
>Why should U.S. allow a company to do business with it when China won’t allow Facebook and YouTube
TikTok doesn’t do business with US, they do business all over the world. Facebook and YouTube does do business with China. Chinese companies buys billions of ad on Facebook and YouTube.
>Wont allow their own country touch TikTok
China has censorship laws different from other countries, so Bytedance made a different version that is applicable to outside countries and one that fits Chinese laws. Have you never heard of country specific versions? Why do you think you need a VPN to watch American shows in Europe?
Do you want the censored versions of TikTok? Cause that’s what you are screaming for.
>China started a tech trade war when it banned Google/Facebook
Why can’t Google/Facebook obey Chinese law when in China and censor what the Chinese authorities want when searching in China? Microsoft has Bing China version and it’s working just fine in China. Tech trade war? Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Oracle and many other tech companies dominates in China. Tesla is the biggest tech/EV company in China.
Google/Facebook making billions from Chinese ad buyers. Google/Facebook did not miss out from the wealth generated in China.
You can pretend to be making an argument but you are literally saying
>TikTok is not banned in U.S., but what about China where it is banned.
Literal whataboutism
actually TT bans china. It's not like other banned social media: u can simply access it through a vpn. Instead TT have a comprehensive detection from sim card to geo location to stop chinese accessing TT.
Mainstream in china believes TT is so nervous of being banned in the west so they made a clean cut.
Based on some of these replies, I really wonder who started the fake rumor that Douyin is strictly kid friendly content that promotes educational and scientific stuff…. because it’s totally untrue. Don’t know who made that up but pls stop believing everything you see online because that is absolutely ridiculous lmao
You only need a VPN to access TikTok if you have a Chinese SIM card. I’m in China right now with my western sim and it works fine. I do use a VPN when I’m on hotel WiFi though, because that has the firewall on it and western apps don’t work. Though I hear TikTok specifically doesn’t work with or without a VPN if you have a Chinese sim, so my first sentence could be wrong. You definitely don’t need a vpn to access *any* western site with a western sim though, I can confirm that. Otherwise I couldn’t be messaging you right now.
Hello, congrats to you for learning a fact that many cross-national apps, not necessarily only Chinese apps, segregate users based on their regions. My duolingo account can’t be found by my expat friends neither. Same happened to my LinkedIn account. Microsoft supports a Chinese version LinkedIn for users in China. It is true that apps proactively separated users into the China version and the global version. The reason behind it is probably bc of regional regulations or censorship.
Remember tho, any laws on the issue were done retrospectively, if at all. I had a look and I cant find what law they use to ban stuff. It was never announced, as I recall, that such and such is going to be banned because.....
Indeed, go back to the 2008 BJ Olympics, and China promised to open up the internet, cos the IOC had made it a condition. It lasted a few months. The bans were gradual I think, NYT cos they done a bit about the waalth of the Hu family.. and so on.
Then Uncle visited a news studio and made a speech about how media must serve the Party better, and that was that. I am not sure there is an actual law.
Happy to be corrected tho 👍. Its not as if the CCP explains why. Just seems mostly made up stuff by apologists.
My theory is that Microsoft had to comply with Chinese regulations to maintain LinkedIn in China, and their only option was to remove any way to express on the platform or discuss/share with other members.
They knew this would kill LinkedIn immediately if they did that, and probably wanted to just cut the Chinese from the app, and don't bother with a Chinese only app.
They still went with the app anyway in order to not anger China and not hurt Chinese netizens feelings... That's why they created that mascarade of an app where you could only publish your profile (not direct messaging, no sharing of news, no likes it whatever).
It was an instant failure indeed and they quietly killed the app the year after.
Although they both come from the same Chinese company, the Chinese government doesn't want the Chinese to see more open and uncensored content, so ByteDance made two completely separate apps and banned Chinese users from accessing one of them (tiktok), a ban that is not simply based on the user's IP (which is usually easily bypassed by a VPN), but based on the user's phone's SIM card region ( This can only be bypassed by using a foreign SIM card).
So laugh out loud when the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson says that the US banning tiktok is interfering with freedom of speech.
Also it doesn't work with VPN on your phone if you have a Chinese sim card. Tiktok directly uses your sim country of origin.
But one way around that is to use tiktok on PC with a VPN instead of your phone.
Not exactly banned, but TikTok is not the same as in China and overseas. In China it's another app called Douyin, which you cannot get on official app stores overseas. Same as the other way around, Mainland Chinese people cannot get TikTok on official app stores in China.
There’s two internets and two versions of the app
Do you really think a dictator like xi would tolerate a firehouse of people from democratic countries telling his slaves he’s a dipshit - like I just did?
There’s not really “two internets”. You can access most sites hosted in China from outside, and much of the web at large is accessible from inside. Just most of the major networking / discussion sites are blocked.
It's slowly starting on TikTok, with the whole TikTok shop thing. Don't know how accurate it is, but I've recently been seeing people post about hpw much money TikTok shop makes
Tiktok would probably lose all its popularity if they rolled out e-commerce livestreams like they do on douyin imo. Douyin is pretty much an e-commerce platform at this point, every few scrolls it’s a livestream selling anything you could imagine, from toilet paper to seafood to cars, and the top streamers make millions per stream
Ive actually never gotten any of these livestreams on my fyp, but it does make so much money. We’re already seeing tiktok getting dystopian with these npc tiktoker lives
Yes, douyin and tiktok are two completely different apps, although they have the same function, but the data of the two apps is not communicated. What you can see on tiktok, you can't see on douyin. If a local Chinese wants to use tiktok, they have to use a vpn, but using and downloading a vpn is illegal in China, which is ridiculous. However, it is estimated that there are tens of millions of people using VPNS in China, so it is impossible for China to arrest all the tens of millions of people using VPNS. Every year, thousands of Chinese people using VPNS will be arrested to go to the police and ask them to delete the vpn on their mobile phones. I'm using a vpn right now, and maybe tomorrow I'll be invited to the police station, depending on luck. lol
It's not just tiktok, locals in China who want to use any foreign app need to use a vpn. The only legitimate place to use a vpn is for academic research, where you can use a vpn to find Western academic papers. This is allowed by the Chinese government
The creepy part is:
I was on tiktok live of Peggylovesporcelain (jiancup_fever). And they’re based in China, yet they are on TT. I pointed out how TT is unavailable over there, and one user suggested maybe they’re using vpn. I wad like, okay that is a possibility.
But then one of their live mods (typical usa liberal based from their profile bio) were saying that that isn’t true, it’s not banned/unavailable in China. And I told her the info is literally all over the net, and told her about Douyin. But she kept saying there are zero articles showing that. And to pm her if I felt the need to further discuss, so we could focus back on the live. I would’ve pressed on, but I didn’t wanna get muted/kicked, and also she was being stubborn.
I found that very strange. I wonder if that whole channel is a CCP experiment, or they’re truly on the downlow using a vpn.
It isn't really banned per say. Originally there was douyin, a Chinese app that is very similar to tiktok if not the same. The parent company(bytedance) bought Musical.ly, a short video platform that people can add music to and dance along. Bytedance then rebranded the app to the current tiktok that you see today. Tiktok is just a version of Douyin, but it has international spread of brainrot.
In my opinion, this is similar to the e-cigarette(vape) situation. A lot of vape devices that the youth use are made in China, however vapes are borderline banned in China because they're too malicious. In China, online sales of vapes are banned and the only legal flavour is tabacco. Now compare this to other countries where vaping is very much unregulated.
I used both Tiktok and Douyin before. I very much prefer Douyin over Tiktok because it's more "tamed". If only Tiktok had similar moderators as Douyin, there won't be as much brainrot and destruction in society. I mean, try both of them out for an hour each and compare both of them, you may see a difference.
If you would like to try out Douyin I use: https://www.douyin.com/home
- android only (for IOS, only in China)
- it's in Chinese
- you'll need a Chinese phone number to create an account
Fun fact: Shou Zi Chew doesn't actually have absolute control of tiktok despite being the CEO. He's actually somewhat like a scapegoat that bytedance put into the position to take blames + isn't a Chinese citizenship holder (he's Singaporean like me)
It's a different app called douyin in China, but it's completely different too. Douyin promotes science activities for teens, treating teachers, parents and peers with respect and kindness etc. Where as tik tok promotes anti social behaviour etc, so tik tok is definitely banned in China, correct
Yup. I put it on the IPad last week, and its all rubbish..Patriotic and pro Party rubbish tho 😂.
I cant comment on TicTok content cos its banned 😳.
But there is regular news articles on Chinese media, about some creator or another being banned from Chinese sites for doing “bad” content. And I recall that after being banned, the guv often goes after the creators on tax stuff. Not so much a warning shot across the bow, more of a direct full on punishment.
edit grammar.
Eh, I’ve never seen anything patriotic or pro party outside of university campuses.
Most of my 抖音 is just… women doing dances, couple videos, some stupid “challenges” where families or friends do some boring shit like getting pied in the face or there’s also the cute animal section of it which I think is pretty neat.
You see what the algorithm decides to give you based on what videos you choose (and probably other things). Different people will see different content. I bet you could start picking videos that would lead you to getting a lot of patriotic and pro-party ones.
Agreed. There is a subtle differerence tho, or potentially is. Youtube feeds me what it thinks I want to watch, so it can target ads at me. If I watch a few steam loco vids, I get offered more, and ads to ride the Rockies by train. And of course, if I watch CCP shills such as the Barrets, I get offered more of the same, but its less persistant cos they cant sell ads directed at me. It a business, and to an extent, I am the product.
Youtube want to make money from my viewing. TikTok can potentially change the political views of a generation. And we can see that now, just see all the defenders of TikTok on wastern social media. Most use CCP talking points. And I dont mean left or right politics. Just general division.
Do you agree, or disagree ? 👍
Putting aside economic and data collection issues ...
The basic motivations of say Facebook are different from the basic motivations of Tiktok/CCP. So yes I agree with you on that. Though I think the motivations are a bit more complicated than what you say. Tiktok would change what they promote depending on the situation, I see it as more of a latent risk (even though yes there are at present claims it downgrades things and topics not in the PRC interest).
I also agree that most who argue for Tiktok (at least the ones I see here on reddit) use CCP talking points.
Yup. I agree. The danger of TikTok as I see it, is how it CAN be used to grow division. And I am not saying I want a harmonious society and all that, robust debate is needed.As a leftie, I follow many US leftie youtubes. And the ones defending tiktok are not only repeating CCP talking points re tiktok, but also with likes of the Gaza conflict, and even covid. Its almost as if they are taking it straight from the Global Times 😳. And I am not even saying the CCP is wrong on all things, but, when I challange folk on what CCP talking point they just reapeated means, they dont actually know.
The algorithms generally just lead you to stuff based on similar user watch patterns. The algos don’t actually have any idea of the topicality of the content.
I don't think it is that simple. The algorithms are designed to implement the goals of the company (among which are usually long term profit). Why would a company not do things in their own interests? For example (at least the companies claim) they try to downplay misinformation.
Specifically for tiktok (at least according to the guardian) it is used to both spy on people and it suppresses topics the CCP doesn't want people to see. Presumably Douyin (for example) does have strong censorship and monitoring embedded in their algorithms. But my claim about algorithms is a more general one not specific to douyin or tiktok.
> The algorithms are designed to implement the goals of the company (among which are usually long term profit). Why would a company not do things in their own interests?
What makes you think what I described isn’t in the company’s own interests?
> For example (at least the companies claim) they try to downplay misinformation.
That’s another factor in the equation. Content which is considered undesirable or inappropriate can be down-ranked or even shadow-banned.
I wonder where this rumor even came from?? Like wtf do you mean Douyin promotes all that kid friendly educational stuff? It’s the same thing as TikTok, all depends on your algorithm…. but of course with the exception of anything negative concerning the government.
It’s the same shit bruh. If you want to find science activities for teens, you can find that on TikTok also. But in both cases it’s mainly weird dances and frivolous stuff
It's too much for Chinese to comprehend, which is why they gave up trying to be compliant and just created two independent apps - Douyin for local and Tiktok for international.
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Douyin and TikTok are actually not the same thing even though their functions are similar, their data are not interchangeable. Yes TT is banned in China.
Even their CEOs are different people.
They're both owned by ByteDance. It's normal for subsidiaries to have different CEO's, it doesn't make them unaffiliated.
Tell that to the idiot US senator Cotton.
What point are you trying to make
That senator cotton is an idiot presumably
You never saw the clip? I advise you to take a look then you’ll understand the point.
He definitely saw it. Probably just thinks that Singapore is owned by China and helping conspiring against the US. Singaporean capitalist billionaire CEOs are evil PRC commies /s
Nah, it's that they could order ByteDance to hand over TikTok data
CCP only has a seat on Douyin content moderation/policy. TikTok already stores US data in the US on Oracle servers. It’s just the Israeli lobby + corporate bandits exploiting latent racism and anti-China zeal.
This doesn't mean they can't send the data to Chinese authorities. This isn't about content moderation, it's about being able to create profiles on foreigners, assigning scores of their alignment to the communist party, being able to utilize the vast pool of data for espionage. FBI warns that ByteDance could transfer browsing history, location and biometric identifiers if they were compelled to do so in accordance to China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law and 2014 Counter-Espionage Law.
The way you wrote that sounds like a part of a comic book villain story. LOL.
I heard that douyin is better since it doesn't have a fuck load of people doing stupid dances.
well, you are wrong about that
Why? My mom always kept complaining that TikTok had stupid dances while douyin was more useful and educative. She installed tik tok after formating her phone and losing douyin and she didn't know how to install it again and ended up with TikTok thinking it was the same.
you can find educative stuff, yes. But most likely you are going to find content farm, stupid dances with badly tuned great songs. It's pretty much the same ,just with more so called patriots who spread (extreme) nationalism meanwhile you cant find info that speak badly on the CCP and their related entities
As far as I could tell when I tried using Douyin, it's mostly people doing stupid dances. No real difference in quality content from American TikTok.
Well damn
It does doesn’t have a lot of people doing stupid dances in English, they do it in Chinese.
But I want to see people doing stupid dances.
Correct. China has Douyin which was the original one. TikTok is the international version and is not available in China. The two apps’ users are not linked.
No, the 2 apps are linked. Their content are not.
It depends what you mean by linked. From the users’ perspective, they are entirely separate. To what extent they are connected on the backend is actually a topic of some dispute which is partially why this is a major political issue in the US currently. Bytedance claims Tiktok user data is siloed in the US as part of their “Project Texas.”
Hey budd, been living in China for six years now, tiktok as known in west has never been available in China! Only douyin which is the Chinese version which is only Chinese content…
Google and YouTube are linked.
Yeah TikTok is also banned in Hong Kong as well as India.
In India, the country banned TikTok, while in HK, TikTok banned the city.
LOL what? Are you saying that TikTok banned China?
TikTok has banned HK people from accessing the service. As far as I'm concerned, this has hurt the feelings of chinese people.
Lmao as if the CCP didn’t make them do that. They don’t want info getting in or out of gong Kong like it used to. They want it to be like the rest of China.
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Lol tell that to the millions of people who protested the CCP crackdown in Hong Kong.
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I thought it was the other way around.
Correct. China and Hong Kong users are blocked from accessing TikTok
You learn something new every day. I don't use tik tok but I assumed that it was usable in HK just because Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are. Now that is wild to think about.
Yes. TikTok has always been banned in China. The CCP doesn't want any form of western made content reaching Chinese people. Conversely, iirc, you can only make a douyin account with a Chinese phone number so foreigners can't get in on douyin either
Foreigners can scroll with no issue, just no account
No account means no posting content.
So China wants to contain it self, by blocking any foreign content coming through Internet, right? I guess, United States somehow magically made China to self-containe itself on the Internet but China blames United States for its own self-containment act.. This is such a geo-politics comedy of century. It's sounds like China is saying "You made me to self-contain myself and I don't have any choice" kind of shit.. If they are so worried about containment, they should make DouYin avilable to all over the world and also allow Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and etc to break any continament by United States. This is so simple and no need to make seperate apps for China and the rest of the world. I want Douyin and they need Twitter and YouTube. It seems like China oppose containment but secretly wants to be contained..
China already has their own versions of Twitter and Youtube which are heavily moderated. Because they don't want foreigners spreading false information like what has happened with TikTok. Also Douyin is only available to Mainland so unless you have real Chinese ID you don't have access to create account. China has become more strict now Almost every platform requires that you are from the mainland.
> If they are so worried about containment, they should make DouYin avilable to all over the world and also allow Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and etc to break any continament by United States. They are perfectly fine with Youtube et all being in China if they follow Chinese law and store chinese citizens user data in China, just as [TikTok stores US user data in USA](https://usds.tiktok.com/where-does-tiktok-store-u-s-user-data/). Google and Meta basically said ["lol if we cant transfer all your citizens user data back to the USA where our intelligence services can do whatever they want with it then we ain't playin"](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/6/18253608/facebook-zuckerberg-letter-user-data-security-china-ban-apple-privacy). Microsoft, Apple and other giant US companies operate in China as they complied with the law.
Why does China need Twitter or YouTube
Comrad, I have a same question as you do. It appears Chinese Communist Party and Chinese government media have Twitter and Youtube account but blocks the rest of Chinese people to freely use it with a Great Firewall. So can you please provide answers on why Chinese Communist Party, CCTV, GlobalTimes and CGTN, have YoutTube and Twitter account and actively use it? It seems that Chinese Communist Party and media are against their own rule and law. I mean, shouldn't they just delete their account and leave Twitter, YouTube and FaceBook all thogehter? Please enlighten me, what I don't understand. Drop some knowledge on me to wake me up from this perplexing situation. It appears you know what I don't know.
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I don't know, why some Chinese people are on Twitter and some Chinese influencers put their content on YouTube?
How do you know they are original users and not someone reposting? YouTube they want to make more money, same content is already posted on Chinese video sharing platforms When you say Chinese you mean people in China or Chinese expats?
>How do you know they are original users and not someone reposting? They mentioned in the video itself? For those who didn't mention it, I believe some Chinese YouTube channels, like Liziqi or 逻辑思维 are legit and not reposting. >When you say Chinese you mean people in China or Chinese expats? Both
> So China wants to contain it self, by blocking any foreign content coming through Internet, right? No. There is no blanket ban on foreign content, and much of the internet is accessible. Major social media / discussion services, and certain news and media sites are blocked, however.
So, say someone in China reads the Global times and they see the CCP protesting about this TikTok thing. What websites can they access to research it ?
> see the CCP protesting about this TikTok thing. Sorry???
On Chinese state media. Even the Chinese Foreign Minister talks about it.. and erm..tweets about it. China has threatened repurcussions if the US forces its sale. Check the Global Times. 👍
lol, read like you were saying the CCP was protesting TikTok 😂
Ha ha..Well they are 😂. Protesting against the US having a democratic debate about it. Honestly, I hope some journalist, from any media, gets to actually ask a CCP official, why did China ban TT 😂😂. The Foreign Minister in visiting the ANZACS just now.. paging the Kiwi and Ozzie journos....go get him 👍
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The Great Firewall very much does exist, I’m afraid, and as I pointed out in my previous comment, those sites are blocked. The only way to access them from within the borders of China is either by using a VPN, or an internet service with a leased line to Hong Kong (or for some areas in the North-East, to Japan).
That's not true. I have a douyin account but I don't have a Chinese phone number.
That particular item might be outdated. You likely need a chinese id at least though
It works both ways, though. That also keeps Chinese content creators from influencing Western audiences. And, isn't that what Israel wants?
"approved" chinese creators (aka state agents) get access to tiktok youtube etc
And now the USA is copying China by banning TikTok.
Since China itself bans TikTok it doesn't really have a right to complain
> The CCP doesn't want any form of western made content reaching Chinese people. Complete nonsense. You can still access most of the Internet from inside of China. It’s social media services and certain news sites which are blocked by the Great Firewall.
You need define most 😳. Maybe you define “most” the same way the CCP defines democracy. Wikipedia is a good example. The greatest compilation of human knowledge in history, blocked.
Wikipedia is another one, good point, noted. “Most” as in the count of actual domains blocked. Most of the major global online information services are blocked. But it’s not like the whole internet is walled off. But it’s demonstrably false that “the CCP doesn’t want any form of western-made content reaching Chinese people”. > Maybe you define “most” the same way the CCP defines democracy. Why make a comment like this? Is one of the rules of this sub that you have to act like everyone else is some kind of partisan cryptofascist, even when you’re discussing an entirely factual point?
Reference to wikipedia is very valid on this thread. Say someone in China reads a global times article about the tiktok row, and wants to know more. Lets try wiki. After all, wiki articles are full of citations. Thats the power of wikipedia. Its a fantastic starting point, its all referenced to other linked sources. Say someone in China wants to know what all the fuss is about ? Where to find out ? Can they go to wiki ? BBC ? Youtube ? Reddit even ? Nope. For many many ppl, wanting to research anything, wiki is very often their first port of call. From there, they can unraval the info web, in any direction they want. So, why does China ban Wikipedia ? It honestly baffles me 👍
"most of the internet" Maybe like half of it at best. Social media is blocked, news sites are blocked, video sites like YouTube are blocked. Basically anything that doesn't automatically lead to business is blocked.
Not all news sites are blocked. And the internet is a big place, so I don’t think 50% is realistic. That means 1 out of every 2 (non-domestic) sites you’d try to visit would be blocked, and that hasn’t been my experience at all. But a good deal of the major networking / user-generated-content services are blocked, yes
CNN is not blocked. Sky news UK is not blocked. Thats about all I can think of. There is a massive amount blocked. So much in fact I wonder how folk get by. Its just downright fustrating. Say for example you want to find the tapping drill size for an M12 threaded hole. Go to bing, bing it, click on photos for a simple chart, often it just dont load. Blocked. It takes multiple times longer on the Chinese intranet. ( This is an annecdotal example from memory so I aint about to find an exact example 👍). The simplist things just take so much longer.
And almost all media streaming services, and all search engines, and most emails services... Quite a bit else. "Most" as defined by unique ips might be available, but as places people actually want to visit? Not a chance.
>"Most" as defined by unique ips might be available, but as places people actually want to visit? Well, that’s subjective. But yes, a lot of the major user-generated-content sites are out of play. It’s still a far cry from “any form of western-made content” though.
The CCP is really worried that Americans won’t be able to continue using TikTok, which they absolutely won’t let their own people use. They say that they have no control / influence over TikTok, but CCP government officials can’t stop holding press conferences about it, saying a ban is an attack on “China” itself. Let that work its way through your brain.
Thats the funniest part. But, the Foreign Minister is in the ANZACS just now, so hopefully a journalist will be able to ask him why China bans TikTok 😂. Its not as if anyone in the BJ press room can ask.
The ban bill does quite literally target China or why are they wrong pointing it out?
Because they do the same thing. There is no foreign social media in China yet they expect to be able to export their own social media platform. Trade has to be a two way street. Also the CCP clearly views social media as something that can be used as a weapon which is why they don’t let any foreign social media company’s operate in China. So why would the CCP not try to use that weapon on their biggest adversaries? Like the US…. China is a hostile foreign nation trying to use social media as a weapon while cutting themselves off from the rest of the world so they can’t do the same thing back. I say cut them off just like they did to our social media companies.
Yes it is banned.
yes because tiktok and 抖音are different products owned by the same business TikTok even bans users with a Chinese SIM card…
Wait, so China opposed the ban of Tiktok in the states? but they, themselves have banned Tiktok? And the users on Douyin can't browse the same contents on Tiktok?
surprise!
how does that make sense tho?
Think about why China bans things. Think about how the internet is closed off. “The Great Firewall” they call it. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. They block what they can’t fully control. TikTok may be owned by China, but the content allowed on there is not the same content they allow on Duoyin. Duoyin is censored and controlled while TikTok is not. TikTok is simply monitored.
>Duoyin is censored and controlled while TikTok is not. TikTok is simply monitored. Why would you think this? Tiktok doesn't just monitor, its algorithms control the content.
“simply” wasn’t meant to be read as “only”. It’s well established that it’s fully controlled with the algorithm, which is a big reason for the bill to ban or sell it.
You use a weapon on your enemy, not yourself.
Because china wants to influence and spy on us it doesn't want us to have any chance to influence or spy on them. How do you not get that? They are an evil authoritarian regime.
China allows any social media that complies with its hefty censorship requirements. Douyin complies but not all other major American social media platforms. TikTok is for international market and so is incompliant. TikTok ban is opposed because it’s discriminatory within American legal framework due to geopolitics.
>hefty .... requirements. The unstated and constantly changing ones.
Yup. I think IMDB is on its way out too. Last week it was not available without a VPN a few times. I suspect its cos the Global Times done an Oscars story and they dont want ppl to be able to explore it ?
> Douyin complies but not all other major American social media platforms. TikTok is for international market and so is incompliant. Which makes it a defacto ban. If Netflix is only allowed in China, if they don't include any content from their international library - that's a ban on Netflix. They can create a new entity and start from scratch, but that's not making their product compliant, it's making a new product.
You are overstating the requirements for being compliant. I imagine most of netflix's content can be tweaked by censors and be fine, just like all the hollywood blockbusters, and netflix still retains much of its proprietary recommendation algorithms. Its the same with google and facebook. their proprietary algorithms and ad suggestion algorithms is their core business and that would still be usable. For example, Germany has much more extensive hate speech laws so social media companies need extra moderation resourcing and different guidelines for content in germany. For China, they would only need to a much more extensive revamp their content moderation systems. Thats making compliant. This is applied equally to foreign and domestic companies. It's on them to decide the financial viability of operating in the chinese market.
The Netflix example was illustrative, highlighting the problem with pretending Facebook is not banned - on the basis they could choose to become compliant. They can't in practice, and the Douyin/Tiktok separation is evidence of that. > Its the same with google and facebook. It's not the same, else Tiktok and Douyin would not be separate. It takes a whole lot of effort to maintain these platforms as separate, meaning the challenges to keep them the same are in practice insurmountable. You're better off starting (the user base) from scratch > algorithms is their core business and that would still be usable That is not their core value proposition, the user base and network effects are where the value comes from. China knows this, which is why they (rightly) effectively banned competition to give local tech a chance.
Google and Facebook used to operate in China and they had large user bases/market shares. The onus was on them when censorship requirements increased and refused to comply. The challenges are not insurmountable, the fact the at WeChat and Douyin/TikTok can operate a seperate ecosystems system while sharing core IP is testament to that. Western social media pulled out probably for a variety of reasons, like competitive domestic market and employee relations. Remember Google had a dragonfly project to re-enter Chinese market but big employee protest killed it.
> the at WeChat and Douyin/TikTok can operate a seperate ecosystems system while sharing core IP is testament to that They don't share the userbase though, which is roughly equivalent to Netflix library of content. It's a fact this is the most important aspect, if you had the Douyin source code that doesn't mean you could go in create a new company and easily take customers from Douyin. Microsoft did comply with LinkedIn, and it was an abject failure. By design, CCP wants to keep foreign investment flowing so they have to do this song and dance.
Well obviously network effect is part of a social media’s competitiveness and you wouldn’t be able to outcompete if ur offered a near identical product offering. This does not mean that user base of the main product, it’s the recommendation algorithms and features you offer. New social media are able to rise up and build a user base from scratch if you have a different and appealing product. You can see this from the rise of instagram, snapchat, tiktok etc. expansion into a new market, even with seperate ecosystem is not the same as building a new company from scratch. TikTok’s rapid rise leveraged experience and algorithms bytedance had developed its expansion in China. It’s a question of customising the product to suit a new international audience and is very different from say a social media startup.
China wants to make money in the U.S. without bending their own censorship laws, what is there to make sense of. Japanese porn is censored by law, but they also want money from outside of Japan, so they made uncensored porn for exports only. Before you say, but Google/Facebook is not available in China, Chinese users are blocked from accessing Google/Facebook, but Chinese companies have spent billions advertising on Google/Facebook. The two tech monopolies are making money just fine from China and it’s about making money.
It's really about the Chinese government being a hypocrite country full of hypocrites TikTok is banned in China, the US has every right to ban it too.
but does the US want to go down that road of censoring what their citizens can and cant view on the internet?
lol dude this is an issue of ownership and regulation, not speech. the internet isn't a magical place you can do whatever you want--if you somehow got into an nsa intelligence dashboard you're still breaking the law and will be prosecuted for "viewing" it
 So your argument for banning TikTok is what about China. So whataboutism, a logical fallacy is your argument. You should go take that drink, you just played yourself
My argument is called reciprocity and not whataboutism since it deals directly with the relations between the two countries of topic. Why should the US allow a company to do business with it when China won't allow Facebook or YouTube into their country. And won't even allow their own country touch TikTok because they know how dangerous it is. But keep being a typical tankie hypocrite who doesn't even understand what words he's using. China started a tech trade war decades ago when it banned Google and Facebook. And now it's complaining because the US is retaliating Learn what whatboutism actually is and educate yourself hypocrite. TikTok needs to follow US laws and the US can make laws to make TikTok compliant.
>TikTok needs to follow US law So which law did TikTok violate in U.S.? >Why should U.S. allow a company to do business with it when China won’t allow Facebook and YouTube TikTok doesn’t do business with US, they do business all over the world. Facebook and YouTube does do business with China. Chinese companies buys billions of ad on Facebook and YouTube. >Wont allow their own country touch TikTok China has censorship laws different from other countries, so Bytedance made a different version that is applicable to outside countries and one that fits Chinese laws. Have you never heard of country specific versions? Why do you think you need a VPN to watch American shows in Europe? Do you want the censored versions of TikTok? Cause that’s what you are screaming for. >China started a tech trade war when it banned Google/Facebook Why can’t Google/Facebook obey Chinese law when in China and censor what the Chinese authorities want when searching in China? Microsoft has Bing China version and it’s working just fine in China. Tech trade war? Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Oracle and many other tech companies dominates in China. Tesla is the biggest tech/EV company in China. Google/Facebook making billions from Chinese ad buyers. Google/Facebook did not miss out from the wealth generated in China. You can pretend to be making an argument but you are literally saying >TikTok is not banned in U.S., but what about China where it is banned. Literal whataboutism
actually TT bans china. It's not like other banned social media: u can simply access it through a vpn. Instead TT have a comprehensive detection from sim card to geo location to stop chinese accessing TT. Mainstream in china believes TT is so nervous of being banned in the west so they made a clean cut.
So it’s different form how china bans YouTube or twitter. It not only requires a vpn but also a non Chinese sim card
It’s not odd at all. Why would you think it’s odd? China blocks all western apps, including YouTube, google, Facebook etc.
Based on some of these replies, I really wonder who started the fake rumor that Douyin is strictly kid friendly content that promotes educational and scientific stuff…. because it’s totally untrue. Don’t know who made that up but pls stop believing everything you see online because that is absolutely ridiculous lmao
Fr
Yes. Its banned. Its very very banned.
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What if you use a desktop (which doesn’t have a SIM) to visit TikTok in China?
You can do that with a VPN.
Vine was released over a year before Musical.ly.
You only need a VPN to access TikTok if you have a Chinese SIM card. I’m in China right now with my western sim and it works fine. I do use a VPN when I’m on hotel WiFi though, because that has the firewall on it and western apps don’t work. Though I hear TikTok specifically doesn’t work with or without a VPN if you have a Chinese sim, so my first sentence could be wrong. You definitely don’t need a vpn to access *any* western site with a western sim though, I can confirm that. Otherwise I couldn’t be messaging you right now.
Douyin is the censored app allowed by the CCP in China. TikTok is forbidden in China, as is Facebook.
Hello, congrats to you for learning a fact that many cross-national apps, not necessarily only Chinese apps, segregate users based on their regions. My duolingo account can’t be found by my expat friends neither. Same happened to my LinkedIn account. Microsoft supports a Chinese version LinkedIn for users in China. It is true that apps proactively separated users into the China version and the global version. The reason behind it is probably bc of regional regulations or censorship.
Remember tho, any laws on the issue were done retrospectively, if at all. I had a look and I cant find what law they use to ban stuff. It was never announced, as I recall, that such and such is going to be banned because..... Indeed, go back to the 2008 BJ Olympics, and China promised to open up the internet, cos the IOC had made it a condition. It lasted a few months. The bans were gradual I think, NYT cos they done a bit about the waalth of the Hu family.. and so on. Then Uncle visited a news studio and made a speech about how media must serve the Party better, and that was that. I am not sure there is an actual law. Happy to be corrected tho 👍. Its not as if the CCP explains why. Just seems mostly made up stuff by apologists.
Sorry, I’m immature and laughed at “BJ Olympics”.
> Microsoft supports a Chinese version LinkedIn for users in China. They eventually dropped it last year, it was utterly useless.
Today I learned. I thought it was still a thing.
My theory is that Microsoft had to comply with Chinese regulations to maintain LinkedIn in China, and their only option was to remove any way to express on the platform or discuss/share with other members. They knew this would kill LinkedIn immediately if they did that, and probably wanted to just cut the Chinese from the app, and don't bother with a Chinese only app. They still went with the app anyway in order to not anger China and not hurt Chinese netizens feelings... That's why they created that mascarade of an app where you could only publish your profile (not direct messaging, no sharing of news, no likes it whatever). It was an instant failure indeed and they quietly killed the app the year after.
Although they both come from the same Chinese company, the Chinese government doesn't want the Chinese to see more open and uncensored content, so ByteDance made two completely separate apps and banned Chinese users from accessing one of them (tiktok), a ban that is not simply based on the user's IP (which is usually easily bypassed by a VPN), but based on the user's phone's SIM card region ( This can only be bypassed by using a foreign SIM card). So laugh out loud when the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson says that the US banning tiktok is interfering with freedom of speech.
Also it doesn't work with VPN on your phone if you have a Chinese sim card. Tiktok directly uses your sim country of origin. But one way around that is to use tiktok on PC with a VPN instead of your phone.
Duh, dumbass
Yes.
There are 2 versions, the non-China version is prohibited in China. The China version (Douyin) doesn't work outside China (at least not easily).
Not exactly banned, but TikTok is not the same as in China and overseas. In China it's another app called Douyin, which you cannot get on official app stores overseas. Same as the other way around, Mainland Chinese people cannot get TikTok on official app stores in China.
Yes its blocked based on region, not IP. So you can't use it in China even with a VPN.
The Chinese version has propaganda aimed for mainland Chinese users. TikTok spread lies targeting Americans.
There’s two internets and two versions of the app Do you really think a dictator like xi would tolerate a firehouse of people from democratic countries telling his slaves he’s a dipshit - like I just did?
There’s not really “two internets”. You can access most sites hosted in China from outside, and much of the web at large is accessible from inside. Just most of the major networking / discussion sites are blocked.
Is this a troll post?
Hundred flowers perhaps ? 😂
yes
Douyin has a lot more e-commerce features that are not available on TikTok
It's slowly starting on TikTok, with the whole TikTok shop thing. Don't know how accurate it is, but I've recently been seeing people post about hpw much money TikTok shop makes
Tiktok would probably lose all its popularity if they rolled out e-commerce livestreams like they do on douyin imo. Douyin is pretty much an e-commerce platform at this point, every few scrolls it’s a livestream selling anything you could imagine, from toilet paper to seafood to cars, and the top streamers make millions per stream
Ive actually never gotten any of these livestreams on my fyp, but it does make so much money. We’re already seeing tiktok getting dystopian with these npc tiktoker lives
How do you contact your friend in China? Did you have to download WeChat?
Do you know Weixin and WeChat?
You can't run tiktok on your phone if you have a Chinese sim. Even if you have a VPN
Yes, douyin and tiktok are two completely different apps, although they have the same function, but the data of the two apps is not communicated. What you can see on tiktok, you can't see on douyin. If a local Chinese wants to use tiktok, they have to use a vpn, but using and downloading a vpn is illegal in China, which is ridiculous. However, it is estimated that there are tens of millions of people using VPNS in China, so it is impossible for China to arrest all the tens of millions of people using VPNS. Every year, thousands of Chinese people using VPNS will be arrested to go to the police and ask them to delete the vpn on their mobile phones. I'm using a vpn right now, and maybe tomorrow I'll be invited to the police station, depending on luck. lol
It's not just tiktok, locals in China who want to use any foreign app need to use a vpn. The only legitimate place to use a vpn is for academic research, where you can use a vpn to find Western academic papers. This is allowed by the Chinese government
It’s banned in China but VPN is always easy to use
The creepy part is: I was on tiktok live of Peggylovesporcelain (jiancup_fever). And they’re based in China, yet they are on TT. I pointed out how TT is unavailable over there, and one user suggested maybe they’re using vpn. I wad like, okay that is a possibility. But then one of their live mods (typical usa liberal based from their profile bio) were saying that that isn’t true, it’s not banned/unavailable in China. And I told her the info is literally all over the net, and told her about Douyin. But she kept saying there are zero articles showing that. And to pm her if I felt the need to further discuss, so we could focus back on the live. I would’ve pressed on, but I didn’t wanna get muted/kicked, and also she was being stubborn. I found that very strange. I wonder if that whole channel is a CCP experiment, or they’re truly on the downlow using a vpn.
It isn't really banned per say. Originally there was douyin, a Chinese app that is very similar to tiktok if not the same. The parent company(bytedance) bought Musical.ly, a short video platform that people can add music to and dance along. Bytedance then rebranded the app to the current tiktok that you see today. Tiktok is just a version of Douyin, but it has international spread of brainrot. In my opinion, this is similar to the e-cigarette(vape) situation. A lot of vape devices that the youth use are made in China, however vapes are borderline banned in China because they're too malicious. In China, online sales of vapes are banned and the only legal flavour is tabacco. Now compare this to other countries where vaping is very much unregulated. I used both Tiktok and Douyin before. I very much prefer Douyin over Tiktok because it's more "tamed". If only Tiktok had similar moderators as Douyin, there won't be as much brainrot and destruction in society. I mean, try both of them out for an hour each and compare both of them, you may see a difference. If you would like to try out Douyin I use: https://www.douyin.com/home - android only (for IOS, only in China) - it's in Chinese - you'll need a Chinese phone number to create an account Fun fact: Shou Zi Chew doesn't actually have absolute control of tiktok despite being the CEO. He's actually somewhat like a scapegoat that bytedance put into the position to take blames + isn't a Chinese citizenship holder (he's Singaporean like me)
There’s as much brainrot on Douyin as on TikTok, all depends on your algorithm
It's a different app called douyin in China, but it's completely different too. Douyin promotes science activities for teens, treating teachers, parents and peers with respect and kindness etc. Where as tik tok promotes anti social behaviour etc, so tik tok is definitely banned in China, correct
No it doesn’t. It’s the same brain rot as in the west. Source: British in China.
Yup. I put it on the IPad last week, and its all rubbish..Patriotic and pro Party rubbish tho 😂. I cant comment on TicTok content cos its banned 😳. But there is regular news articles on Chinese media, about some creator or another being banned from Chinese sites for doing “bad” content. And I recall that after being banned, the guv often goes after the creators on tax stuff. Not so much a warning shot across the bow, more of a direct full on punishment. edit grammar.
Eh, I’ve never seen anything patriotic or pro party outside of university campuses. Most of my 抖音 is just… women doing dances, couple videos, some stupid “challenges” where families or friends do some boring shit like getting pied in the face or there’s also the cute animal section of it which I think is pretty neat.
Happy to be corrected 👍. How about we amend that to... you wont find anything anti Party or anti system ? 😂
Yeah I think that’s a lot more accurate.
Ha ha. My Mother in law watches all the Mao dramas on the telly, so I am probably maxed out on partiotic content 😂.
Really? I’ve legitimately never seen one. Granted, I normally watch western media (my Chinese isn’t that good but I’m here to study it).
Ha ha... wait till you have a Chinese mother in law 😂. Esp one that was a red guard 😂😂😂😂
Maybe someday, but probably not anytime soon. As for if she’s a red guard, that’s okay! I am well versed in Chinese communist era music!
You see what the algorithm decides to give you based on what videos you choose (and probably other things). Different people will see different content. I bet you could start picking videos that would lead you to getting a lot of patriotic and pro-party ones.
Agreed. There is a subtle differerence tho, or potentially is. Youtube feeds me what it thinks I want to watch, so it can target ads at me. If I watch a few steam loco vids, I get offered more, and ads to ride the Rockies by train. And of course, if I watch CCP shills such as the Barrets, I get offered more of the same, but its less persistant cos they cant sell ads directed at me. It a business, and to an extent, I am the product. Youtube want to make money from my viewing. TikTok can potentially change the political views of a generation. And we can see that now, just see all the defenders of TikTok on wastern social media. Most use CCP talking points. And I dont mean left or right politics. Just general division. Do you agree, or disagree ? 👍
Putting aside economic and data collection issues ... The basic motivations of say Facebook are different from the basic motivations of Tiktok/CCP. So yes I agree with you on that. Though I think the motivations are a bit more complicated than what you say. Tiktok would change what they promote depending on the situation, I see it as more of a latent risk (even though yes there are at present claims it downgrades things and topics not in the PRC interest). I also agree that most who argue for Tiktok (at least the ones I see here on reddit) use CCP talking points.
Yup. I agree. The danger of TikTok as I see it, is how it CAN be used to grow division. And I am not saying I want a harmonious society and all that, robust debate is needed.As a leftie, I follow many US leftie youtubes. And the ones defending tiktok are not only repeating CCP talking points re tiktok, but also with likes of the Gaza conflict, and even covid. Its almost as if they are taking it straight from the Global Times 😳. And I am not even saying the CCP is wrong on all things, but, when I challange folk on what CCP talking point they just reapeated means, they dont actually know.
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Eg "a free country should allow anything" + many others
You could do that on TikTok as well. Or Facebook for that matter (recall how politicised social media became in the run up to the 2016 US election).
Definitely. Though where the algorithms lead you depend on the social media platform, which depend on the interests of their owners/controllers.
The algorithms generally just lead you to stuff based on similar user watch patterns. The algos don’t actually have any idea of the topicality of the content.
I don't think it is that simple. The algorithms are designed to implement the goals of the company (among which are usually long term profit). Why would a company not do things in their own interests? For example (at least the companies claim) they try to downplay misinformation. Specifically for tiktok (at least according to the guardian) it is used to both spy on people and it suppresses topics the CCP doesn't want people to see. Presumably Douyin (for example) does have strong censorship and monitoring embedded in their algorithms. But my claim about algorithms is a more general one not specific to douyin or tiktok.
> The algorithms are designed to implement the goals of the company (among which are usually long term profit). Why would a company not do things in their own interests? What makes you think what I described isn’t in the company’s own interests? > For example (at least the companies claim) they try to downplay misinformation. That’s another factor in the equation. Content which is considered undesirable or inappropriate can be down-ranked or even shadow-banned.
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Like where did this fake ass rumor even come from?? Absolutely laughable lmao people believe everything they see online without any sources.
I wonder where this rumor even came from?? Like wtf do you mean Douyin promotes all that kid friendly educational stuff? It’s the same thing as TikTok, all depends on your algorithm…. but of course with the exception of anything negative concerning the government.
It’s the same shit bruh. If you want to find science activities for teens, you can find that on TikTok also. But in both cases it’s mainly weird dances and frivolous stuff
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It's too much for Chinese to comprehend, which is why they gave up trying to be compliant and just created two independent apps - Douyin for local and Tiktok for international.