Media Regulation (Tiktok)

What are the difficulties of regulation media in the digital age?

Douyin history 

Douyin when it was introduced by ByteDance in Beijing, China, in September 2016 served as a short form social media platform. In December 2016, the name was changed to Douyin from A.Me. In a year, Douyin has 100 million subscribers and more than one billion daily video views after 200 days of development. ByteDance intended for Douyin to go global. Zhang Yiming, the creator of ByteDance, claimed that "China only accounts for one fifth of all Internet users worldwide. We will undoubtedly fall short of competitors eyeing the four-fifths if we don't grow on a worldwide basis. Consequently, expanding internationally is essential. This led to the expansion of the app to target US and Western audiences otherwise known as Tiktok.

Tiktok history 

Although TikTok and Douyin's user interfaces are nearly identical, they do not share content.Each of their servers is located in the market where the relevant app is offered. Despite similarities, the two items' features are not the same. Along with other services like shopping, booking hotels, and writing geotagged reviews, Douyin also has an in-video search capability that allows users to look for additional videos of specific persons by their faces. 

In the first half of 2018, TikTok was downloaded more than 104 million times from the Apple App Store, according to information provided to CNBC by Sensor Tower. TikTok overtook Musical.ly as the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018 after the two companies merged in August, surpassing Musical.ly's previous record.

 TikTok is the first social media platform to have 1 billion active monthly users faster than any other, despite having a smaller user base than Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, spent $120 million as of 2022 to encourage more video creators to its Reels service, but interaction levels remained low due to competition from TikTok.Users of Instagram, Spotify, and Twitter reacted negatively to the modifications.

Douyin regulation

As soon as the app gained traction in 2018, the Chinese government took matters firmly stating that they would have to regulate certain aspects of the app due to the complaint of many Chinese parents. These requests are nothing new to TikTok's parent firm, ByteDance. In China, similar government forces have been present since at least 2018. 

In that same year, Douyin created a "teenager mode" that, like YouTube Kids, only displays content that has been approved by parents. It also implemented in-app parental controls and prohibited minors from participating in livestreams. In 2019, Douyin restricted teenager mode users to 40 minutes each day, only available from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Then, starting in 2021, it mandated that users under 14 use adolescent mode. Because of this, many of the policies that ByteDance is now beginning to implement outside of China with TikTok have already been vigorously tested with Douyin. 

Tiktok regulation

TikTok stated on March 1 of this year, that it is limiting users under the age of 18 to a 60-minute default time limit each day. For an extra 30 minutes, individuals under the age of 13 would require a code provided by their parents, while those aged 13 to 18 can decide for themselves. 

TikTok is undoubtedly responding to popular requests from parents and policymakers who are concerned that children are becoming overly addicted to it and other social media platforms, even though the effectiveness of this measure is still up in the air (it is certainly possible, for example, to lie about your age when registering for the app). In 2022, teens preferred TikTok over Snapchat and YouTube, spending an average of 103 minutes daily on the latter. 

Freedom of speech on Tiktok and Douyin

Moreover, it is important to note that due to these regulations the freedom of speech of individuals on these platforms are much more limited as, the government has the right to ban or restrict certain content that may not be suitable for the larger demographic in China. Which is why we see a culture clash between the apps as both target not only different markets but due to the cultural differences placed between them, we see Douyin being more suitable for children and more people focussed, making laws and regulation for the people where otherwise Tiktok with its perdominantly Western audience has more freedom in sharing opinions and sharing different content as the regulations in place for the app are not as strict.