TikTok’s Beijing-based owner was among the companies under pressure this month to get tough on moneymaking stunts after a livestreamer reportedly drank himself to death two weeks ago.
China’s most successful export faces ongoing scrutiny in the United States over national security concerns. At home, however, app maker ByteDance is confronting a different set of public and private challenges related to Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese twin, which it also owns.
The platform’s role as an online content regulator was the subject of renewed debate after a Douyin influencer, identified only by the last name Wang, was found dead in his home roughly 12 hours after a livestream in which he was said to have drunk up to seven bottles of baijiu, a clear spirit containing up to 60 percent alcohol.
🇨🇳 KOL “三千哥” died hours after downing at least 4 bottles of baijiu (白酒, a colorless Chinese liquor) live on social media in response to a challenge on May 16. pic.twitter.com/wiqqcHqyFo
— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) May 22, 2023
Wang, 34, went by the screen name “Sanqiange” and was from Lianyungang in China’s eastern Jiangsu province. Local news outlets said he took part in a drinking contest with other influencers to win donations from audience members. The stream ended after midnight on May 16, the reports said.
Similar livestreamed content, known as eating or drinking shows, was popularized in South Korea over a decade ago on websites such as YouTube and later Twitch. The broadcasts don’t often involve harmful substances such as alcohol, but most rely on the influencer’s ability to consume large amounts of food or drink.
In China, Douyin and competitor Kuaishou are among the apps that allow family-friendly versions, which the country’s internet watchdog has been seeking to officially discourage for at least two years.
The videos, in which influencers also advertise products for affiliate commission, are part of a lucrative livestream and e-commerce industry estimated to be worth upward of $400 billion last year, according to a March report by Cinda Securities, a Chinese investment consultancy.
On May 16, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, said eating shows encourage food wastage, which “goes against social morality.” Platforms have a duty to stop providing services to offenders, it said in an article that was unrelated to Wang’s case.
WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images
Like TikTok, which prohibits the promotion of alcoholic beverages, Douyin’s terms of use include penalties for drinking during livestreams that range from warnings and demonetization to weeklong shadow bans. But the latest criticism concerned Wang’s ability to circumvent the restrictions with new accounts, the last of which had 44,000 followers.
Reports that suggested the influencer had three other accounts—two deactivated and one banned—led Chinese internet users to question Douyin’s capacity to monitor inappropriate content.
“In terms of regulating livestream behavior, platforms are the content manager and have inescapable responsibility,” said a May 25 report by Legal Daily, a state-owned paper about legal developments in China.
“Livestream providers should fulfill their main responsibility by establishing a livestream content review platform and mechanisms for sound information verification, safe information management, on-duty inspections, emergency responses, and technical guarantees,” it said.
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