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Zeyi Yang, a writer for MIT Tech Review, suggests that Americans and Chinese may have more similarities in their thinking than they realize. The most noticeable evidence is how both countries express concerns about the amount of time children and adolescents spend on social media apps, with TikTok in the U.S. and Douyin in China.On March 1st, TikTok announced it would set default limits for accounts owned by individuals under 18, allowing a maximum of 60 minutes of video viewing per day. Children under 13 will require parental login credentials to access an additional 30 minutes, while those aged 13 to 18 can decide for themselves whether they want to extend their viewing time.The effectiveness of this limitation solution remains uncertain. For instance, there's nothing stopping young users from creating new accounts, falsifying their ages to bypass TikTok's restrictions altogether. However, what's certain is that TikTok is responding to one of the most common requests from both parents and managers. They all share the concern that children are at risk of TikTok addiction specifically, and social media platforms in general.
According to statistics, in 2022, American teens spend an average of 103 minutes per day watching TikTok, surpassing the averages of 72 minutes for Snapchat and 67 minutes for YouTube. Alongside Instagram, this app has also been found to promote content related to eating disorders and self-harming behaviors among young users.
That year, Douyin introduced parental management features, prohibiting users under 18 from livestreaming on the app, and launching a 'teen user mode', displaying only age-appropriate content, much like YouTube Kids.
It's as if they realized this technology is directly impacting children's development, and they made a domestic version tailored perfectly for kids, while for other countries, it's an extremely harmful version of TikTok.
In 2021, when the government regulatory body in China came up with such stringent measures to regulate the gaming industry, the social media sector also panicked because the general perception in this country is that Douyin is as addictive as games. When even the immensely profitable gaming sector is regulated with a 'one hour per day' style, there's no reason why video-sharing social networks should escape.Those concerns are now becoming a reality. On February 27th, the Chinese broadcasting regulatory agency announced a meeting to 'manage short video-sharing platforms, preventing young users from addiction.' Analysts believe this meeting implies that the Chinese government is not satisfied with the time-limiting and access approaches ByteDance is currently employing for Douyin, and it requires stricter measures.
Reading this far, one can be certain that the U.S. cannot apply 100% of what China has done and is doing to manage TikTok because the solutions mentioned above are all about 'exchanging privacy for content safety.'To ensure that no children in China use their parents' accounts to watch or upload clips on Douyin, all social media accounts are linked to the citizen identification number of this country. ByteDance even claims to apply facial recognition technology to monitor livestreams, ensuring that no children go live on this platform.The example from the gaming industry in China a few years ago vividly illustrates how effective 'trading privacy rights' could be. Before 2019, the Chinese gaming industry theoretically restricted access for young users, but couldn't manage on a case-by-case basis. Since 2021, there has been a centralized database of identities for every Chinese gamer, tightly integrated with facial recognition systems developed by corporations like Tencent and NetEase, capable of facial recognition in just seconds.In terms of content, Douyin's 'teenager mode' has also blocked content deemed harmful, such as 'superstitious and bizarre' or 'adult entertainment' content, like karaoke bars or nightclubs, places where minors are not allowed. However, it must be emphasized that ByteDance has no say in deciding which types of content are distributed on Douyin, both in the version for minors and adults.According to MIT Technology Review
