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Zhang Jun warns of not only paying attention to superficial phenomena of China's economy. The economist explains what underlies China's often overlooked irrepressible dynamism.
By Ning Wang
Beijing's new draft law to regulate algorithms of apps and websites has it all. It offers users clever ways to protect themselves from manipulation. This includes, for example, recommendations for products, videos, or content. Among other things, providers must disclose what data they have already collected. However, experts see two crucial weak points.
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China has bought into ByteDance, the publisher of the video app TikTok – with now presumably far-reaching veto power. The debate over the influence of the Chinese leadership over the popular app is now likely to flare up again.
By Redaktion Table
The Chinese app TikTok is popular all over the world. Read all the important and latest news from the China.Table editorial team.
TikTok is a short video app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It has more than one billion active users worldwide and is thus one of the best-known and most successful apps.
The app's concept revolves around uploading short videos of people dancing accompanied by voice-overs. The app is particularly popular among young people. It was developed by the Chinese company ByteDance. The company bought the app musical.ly in 2017 and combined both apps in one single application, whereupon TikTok became known in Germany.
TikTok is called Douyin in China (short for Douyin short video 抖音短视频 Dǒuyīn duǎnshìpín). However, not only the names but also the contents of the two apps differ.
While Douyin content is subject to censorship mechanisms by the Chinese government and is thus purely focused on entertainment, TikTok is the global version, supposedly without censoring politically sensitive content. The international version of the app is banned in China. However, censorship mechanisms have been discovered in TikTok as well. The app has been found to hide keywords, for example from the LGBTQIA+ community, which limits the reach of videos containing these terms.
During Donald Trump's administration, TikTok was blacklisted by the US. The reason for this was the accusation of the Chinese government exercising influence over the app. Although, the US did not end up banning the application, it was revealed shortly afterward that the Chinese government itself owns shares in the company. Thus, the possibility to exert pressure on the company by the Chinese government exists. Furthermore, due to the tech crackdown by Beijing, private tech companies like ByteDance must watch their image and comply with the demands of the Chinese government.