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But the wildly popular platform, developed with homegrown Chinese technology, isn’t accessible in China. In fact, it’s never existed there. Instead, there’s a different version of TikTok — a sister app called Douyin.
But the two platforms, similar on the surface, play by starkly different rules.
Here’s what you need to know about Douyin and ByteDance:
It’s really popular
Douyin has a whopping 600 million users a day. Like TikTok, it’s a short-form video app.
Launched in 2016, Douyin was the major money spinner for ByteDance years before TikTok, raking in revenue through in-app tipping and livestreaming.
ByteDance was founded by Zhang Yiming, a former Microsoft employee, and first became known for its news app Jinri Toutiao or “Today’s Headlines,” which debuted in 2012 soon after the company was founded.
Toutiao created customized news feeds for each user. People quickly got hooked, with users averaging more than 70 minutes a day on the platform.
ByteDance applied a similar formula to Douyin.
The app’s popularity has since gone global. In 2021, TikTok reached more than 1 billion monthly active users around the world.
Beauty filters are everywhere
The TikTok and Douyin interfaces look similar, but when users turn on their cameras, one difference becomes clear: Douyin has an automatic beauty filter, which smooths out skin and often changes the shape of a person’s face.
Women in China have long faced huge pressure to conform to beauty standards that emphasize a slim figure, large eyes, dewy skin and high cheekbones.
There is surging demand for plastic surgery. Between 2014 and 2017, the number of people getting plastic surgery in China more than doubled. Meanwhile, beauty apps compete to create filters that show users more beautiful versions of themselves.
It’s made for shopping
Another major difference between TikTok and Douyin is China’s massive online shopping market.
