ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 traces the growth of Douyin’s increasing popularity. China had numerous short-video apps from 2016 to 2018, but Douyin exceeded its competitors and achieved great success domestically. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the rise of Douyin and unlocks the strategic steps in its international expansion. Similar to Douyin, the sister app TikTok achieved huge success internationally and rose to become the main competitor of popular Western platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook. This chapter covers the successes, disputes, opportunities and challenges of Douyin and TikTok and highlights the social discourse of platform regulation.
