Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese version, tightens vetting of advertisers as Beijing takes aim at booming short web drama market

Douyin, which is the Chinese version of TikTok, has over 600 million people using it every day. Now, Douyin is getting stricter with its ads because the Beijing government wants more control over short video content. From Thursday, advertisers who want to promote short-form dramas need to have the right licenses. These include a 'radio and television programme production and operations licence', a 'value-added telecoms business operations licence', and either an 'information network communications audiovisual licence' or an 'internet culture operations licence'. The government has already checked these licenses. nnThis new rule from Douyin is to make sure that the short video industry is going in a good direction. It means that only certain organizations with all three licenses can advertise their content, not just any individual or small studio. According to Zhang Yi from iiMedia, this is a great chance for those organizations that have the licenses. nnShort web dramas are becoming very popular in China. In the first half of this year, there were 480 new ones, which is more than the whole of last year. ByteDance, the company that owns Douyin, was started in 2012 and is now making a lot of money. They made $29 billion in just one quarter of 2023, which is 40% more than last year. This means they're even bigger than Tencent, another huge internet company in China. But ByteDance has to be careful because they always have to follow the government's rules about what can be in their videos. nnThe National Radio and Television Administration, which is in charge of TV and radio rules, said they're going to be even stricter with short dramas. They're going to check everything about them, like who's in them and what messages they're sending. TikTok, which is the international version of Douyin, is also facing more attention. In the US, some Jewish celebrities are asking TikTok to do more to stop antisemitism on their platform.