While American youth are performing hyper-sexualized dances and engaging in absurd viral trends, like the deadly NyQuil Chicken Challenge, their Chinese counterparts are treated to a curated stream of videos promoting patriotism, social cohesion and personal aspirations.
For a long time, TikTok insisted any data collected by their servers could not be accessed by anyone in China. In November 2022, the company changed its privacy policy. It now said staff in China could access data.
TikTok, which has over 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd., which appoints its executives. ByteDance is based in Beijing but registered in the Cayman Islands, as is common for privately owned Chinese companies.
Harris said the Chinese version of TikTok serves children at-home science experiments, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos. He added that children in China were limited to only 40 minutes a day on the app.
Instead, there's a different version of TikTok — a sister app called Douyin. Both are owned by Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, but Douyin launched before TikTok and became a viral sensation in China. Its powerful algorithm became the foundation for TikTok and is key to its global success.
TikTok's privacy policy also says the company collects your email address, phone number, age, search and browsing history, information about what's in the photos and videos you upload, and if you consent, the contents of your device's clipboard so that you can copy and paste information into the app.
Douyin ( 抖音, meaning “shaking sound” in Chinese) is China's leading destination for short-video content. Released in 2016, the Douyin app has evolved into a super app that currently covers short and mid-video content, livestreaming, and e-commerce.
While TikTok has become the most popular app in the rest of the world, a domestic version called Douyin is available to Chinese consumers. The apps are nearly identical — but with one critical difference: users under 14 are required to use Douyin in healthy moderation on “teenage mode.”
Another key difference: Douyin takes a much stricter line on younger users. Users under 14 can access only child-safe content and use the app for just 40 minutes a day and. They can't use the app from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. For years, China has tried to curb video game addiction and other unhealthy online habits.
TikTok is different in China due to its focus on Chinese markets and user demographics. As the original version of the app, Douyin has a larger presence in China compared to TikTok.
TikTok has not provided such data to the Chinese government or CCP, nor would TikTok do so.”
The app can invade your privacy because it is able to see everything and everyone users interact with. TikTok also collects information regarding a user's name, age, email, phone number, networks they use, contacts they have and more.
Why are governments banning TikTok? It all comes down to China. Lawmakers and regulators in the West have increasingly expressed concern that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, may put sensitive user data, like location information, into the hands of the Chinese government.
It's not any more invasive than any other social-media app. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok all require you to give up much of your personal information by signing that EULA. The difference is that Facebook and Instagram are based in the United States, and TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is based in China.
Fact: TikTok's parent company ByteDance Ltd. was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly sixty percent of the company is beneficially owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group.
China is turning a major part of its internal Internet-data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information on foreign targets, according to a Washington Post review of hundreds of Chinese bidding documents ...
TikTok in China
Although they're both owned by ByteDance, Douyin — China's version of TikTok — offers a different version of the social media app that is unavailable to the rest of the world, especially for children.
Privacy and data protection are among the most significant legal issues that businesses face when using TikTok, and the platform is under continued scrutiny for its data collection practices. In 2020, TikTok was fined $5.7 million by the US Federal Trade Commission for violating children's privacy laws.
TikTok has announced that it's expanding its audience controls feature, giving creators the ability to restrict their videos to adult viewers. Prior to this expansion, the adult-only audience controls feature was only available for TikTok Live. Now the company is bringing the feature to its short-form videos as well.
In January 2023, IPVM reported that the China's version of TikTok, Douyin, censors pro-LGBTQ+ content, prohibiting "unhealthy and non-mainstream views on marriage and love."
The end of China's one-child policy was announced in late 2015, and it formally ended in 2016. Beginning in 2016, the Chinese government allowed all families to have two children, and in 2021 all married couples were permitted to have as many as three children.
A Third of TikTok's U.S. Users May Be 14 or Under, Raising Safety Questions.
Douyin makeup is actually an umbrella term for a broad makeup style, defined by soft and ethereal looks that give a doll-like appearance. The name comes from the social media app, Douyin, which ByteDance created in 2016 and is exclusive to China.
Unless you're in Mainland China, there is no way that you can find Douyin on your App Store or Play Store. For this reason, you need to go to Douyin's official website and get the installation files there.
Therefore, global TikTok is more art-based, with musicians, dancers, and so on, while Douyin is skills and lifestyle-tips-based, with automatic voiceovers with no personal touch.