Douyin is a Chinese social media application released by ByteDance in 2016. As of 2022, its daily usage reached upwards of 500 million users logging in. In 2018, ByteDance released the US version of Douyin, TikTok. It has 1 billion daily users and is available in 40 languages. They are very popular amongst young audiences, whose usage can be explained by diversion and surveillance in the Uses and Gratification theory.
When it comes to app regulation, Douyin has more rules imposed for its users, most notably for children below the age of 14. Some of the rules include promotion of educational and patriotic videos by the algorithm. TikTok on the other hand, has no self regulations for children under 14, having only the US Law Section 230 giving some sort of law and order in TikTok. This has proven to be challenging due to the fact. that an overwhelming majority of its users are very young. US Law Section 230 only grants the government authority to penalise TikTok if the content released belong to the exemptions. As a result, TikTok will be free from any responsibility and is protected by the law if any other harmful contents are posted. For example, say someone posts a content promoting self harm. TikTok would not be held responsible for having 'hosting' such harmful content, and it would be up to them to decide whether the user should be penalised.
The laws that both Douyin and TikTok has in place are a breach of freedom of speech, however, Douyin has it worse. Douyin users under 14 are unable to freely express their creativity, instead having to conform to the Chinese government's ideals and propaganda. On the other hand, you could also argue that TikTok is way too free for an app targeted towards young audiences, who are more naive and irresponsible.
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