Do any of you know about pro-chinese videos on tiktok produced to affect opinions on the conflict between China and Taiwan?
I am a danish/netherlands based guest artist working in Taiwan. During my stay I heard a lot of talk about taiwanese responses to chinas political use of tiktok.
I also heard that tiktok in taiwan is showing videos promoting pro-chinese oppinions on Taiwans independence.
I am very curious to see how such videos looks like if they exist, but most of my friends and people I meet dont use tiktok, and tell about these videos without being able to show them. I personally dont feel like opening a tiktok account but as a part of my media interest I am very curious to see how these videos are created, what visual tools they use etc.
Do any of you know about pro-chinese videos on tiktok produced to affect opinions on the conflict between China and Taiwan?
And do you know how to watch without getting a tiktok account?
I am curious because I am aware of the power of tiktok and want to understand pro-chinese media rethorics - not because I want to share them around.
thank you for sharing this video Zaowangyeh!
1 Like
Trying to dig some specific videos up for you, but like you, I won’t download the tiktok app. I just watched one that gave examples about how they use it to target the western mind. Let me know if you want me to drop it here. I don’t want to clog up your thread with stuff that is not specific to Taiwan.
I see them occasionally.
Influencers pedaling Chinese perspectives for whatever particular benefit may they may be getting donations or subs or maybe Chinese government funding.
Tiktok it’s so well managed that it, algorithm and other things, will target people that might be easier influenced.
So some people may never see them some people may see them occasionally in some may see them frequently.
While pro-China videos certainly exist on social media in Taiwan (not just TikTok), I’ve come to learn that you have to take what Taiwanese people consider “pro-China” with a grain of salt.
To many Taiwanese people, any video or article that isn’t anti-China is considered “pro-China” even if it’s objectively neutral. 
Interesting fact about TikTok in Taiwan is that its run from Beijing.
Anyway TikTok is popular. I think even more popular is Xiaohongshu, like a kinda mix of Instagram and Pinterest. Xiaohongshu is very popular with young people.
I think this is a real concern. I have heard that its now trendy for young people to use simplified characters in Taiwan as they picked it up on Xiaohongshu.
The most famous guy in Taiwan talking about infiltration is Puma Shen, so you should have a look at his stuff. He is a bit of a contraversial character though.
1 Like
I did see while diving into youtube the “little red book” and its popularity among the younger crowd on the ROC. A lot of feedback during interviews that I watched were of college age and they stated that they watched it to see swai ge and mei nu. Forgive my laziness to drag out the Mandarin characters.
I appreciate @Guestfromnetherlands question because it has been a big question here in the States.
I have a feeling the TikTok in Taiwan is the same TikTok China uses. It’s not the version owned by Bytedance.
1 Like
They are all owned by Bytedance. Thats the parent company. Its not run by a seperate entity in Singapore of wherever the rest of the world is, its directly run from Beijing
1 Like
I thought I heard someone said that the version used in the US and the West is different than the version used by Chinese?
Yes, 抖音 (based in China) and TikTok (based in Singapore) are both owned by the Chinese parent company Bytedance.
2 Likes
I didn’t think both are different because when Taiwanese refer to TikTok they call it 抖音, and if I enter TikTok into google translate it returns 抖音 too.
So I don’t know which is which, and I had a feeling that the version Taiwan uses is the same as the version used by Chinese.
Douyin and Tiktok used to be the same entity, but due to Trump administration pressure, they were split into two, with TikTok being HQ’ed in Singapore(actually think its California).
But anyway, Taiwan TikTok is an outlier, because its run from Beijing but still TikTok.
1 Like
Taiwan uses TikTok, but Taiwanese will say Douyin as they don’t know otherwise.
Douyin has a lot more features, especially in e-commerce. Its a completely separate app.
Taiwanese 100% do not use the Chinese version
Isn’t that how most Chinese apps are like? Like Wechat is basically just a messaging app but it has a million other features such as being used as a payment platform through AliPay and all that.
They are separate apps that share almost the same code, and have the same branding.
抖音 is owned by the Chinese company Douyin, with servers located in China, and the app is sold on the App Store in China and Taiwan.
TikTok is owned by the Singaporean/US company TikTok, with servers located in Silicon Valley, and the app is sold on app stores outside of China and Taiwan (including the US).
Both companies are owned by the Chinese parent company Bytedance.
抖音 (the Chinese app) is branded as “TikTok” for English users worldwide. TikTok (the Singaporean/US app) is branded as 抖音 for Chinese-language users worldwide.
Yes all Chinese apps start creating their own ecosystems. They all try to be super apps
There isn’t really a center to the Chinese internet and search engines are not that important. They have Baidu but it’s not that important. Chinese access the internet through searching through these walled garden ecosystems
It’s also very very mobile oriented
Still curious to see if anyone can find and post Pro CCP tiktok videos here, aimed at the Taiwanese, as the OP requested.
So it’s confusing as hell, because I’m able to use WeChat in Taiwan (and the rest of the world), it just doesn’t have the expanded features that people in China has.
I notice many Taiwanese are also very smartphone oriented, with many not using popular social media networks on desktop at all, but only on their smartphones.
