Tag: bytedance

Tencent Is Bringing Content Creators to WeChat to Challenge TikTok’s Dominance

On a hot summer’s day last year, the 90’s boy band Backstreet Boys clambered on to a stage in Pennsylvania and belted out hits as 44 million viewers tuned in from thousands of miles away for the online concert hosted by China’s WeChat Channels.

The show is just one of many events held by WeChat owner Tencent to promote the app’s short-video platform – described by the tech giant’s founder Pony Ma as “the hope of the company”.

Tencent Holdings Ltd has tapped other entertainers too like Taiwan’s Jay Chou and Irish boy band Westlife for livestreamed concerts and, according to a source, has set up a team to build a community of content creators as it seeks to challenge the dominance of ByteDance, the owner of TikTok and Douyin, and Kuaishou in the short-video business.

“Tencent hopes it can turn Channels into the next WeChat Pay. It has a shot at it. But it is also going to be difficult,” said Liao Xuhua, a senior analyst at research firm Analysys.

WeChat Pay became the second-biggest player in China’s mobile payment market within a year of its 2013 launch, behind Alipay which is owned by Jack Ma-founded Ant Group.

Two sources familiar with Tencent said the importance of Channels has been repeatedly communicated within the company.

The two-year old platform has been a bright spot for Tencent in an otherwise dismal 2022 when revenue for its other products, such as games and payment services, were slammed by tighter gaming regulations and strict COVID-19 curbs.

The total number of views on Channels surged more than three-fold last year, Tencent said this week as it revealed its latest growth figures for the platform.

Daily active creators and video uploads more than doubled.

Gross merchandise value (GMV) from livestreaming e-commerce, where telegenic personalities hawk goods online in real time, jumped more than 800 percent on Channels, the company said.

It did not disclose absolute figures.

A LatePost report says Channels’ daily transactions from livestreamed sales pitches reached more than CNY100 million ($15 million, or roughly Rs. 122 crore) in September 2022 for the first time, indicating an annual rate of about CNY36 billion (roughly Rs. 43,000 crore).

But Douyin was already aiming to bring its GMV to over 1 trillion yuan ($155 billion or roughly Rs. 12 lakh crore) in 2021, a six-fold jump from 2020 levels, sources said at the time. ByteDance does not publicly disclosee official GMV numbers.

Integrating products

Tencent has been integrating many of its products, ranging from Tencent Meetings to WeChat Mini Program, with Channels to help creators livestream content just like the U.S. band Backstreet Boys.

Tencent Meetings is a Zoom-like teleconference service while mini programs are like apps on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems but less data intensive and run within WeChat.

An integration would allow, for example, a podcast host to conduct an interview on Meetings and livestream it on Channels. If the host recommends a product during the chat, a link can pop up on the screen to take viewers to a Mini Program where they can buy the product using WeChat Pay.

Tencent has also slashed the threshold for monetisation on Channels, allowing users with as few as 10 followers, versus 1,000 earlier, to start making money through advertisements.

TikTok requires content creators to have more than 10,000 followers to start monetising.

Channels has also opened up ad opportunities “like never before”, said Li Yikai, general manager of Americas and EMEA at ad agency Nativex, versus WeChat that pushes a few ads a day.

“When you are already scrolling and come across an ad, you don’t think twice about it. So naturally you come across a lot more ads with short videos,” Li said.

In November, Tencent President Martin Lau said Channels’ advertising revenue was on track to reach 1 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2022.

For TikTok and Douyin, research firm Insider Intelligence estimated in April last year that ad revenues would together reach more than $30 billion (roughly Rs. 2.4 lakh crore) for 2022.

Channels has also started charging e-commerce merchants a 1 percent to 5 percent commission fee from this month.

Douyin has been charging 1 percent to 10 percent since 2020.

Rivalry

While some analysts see Channels as Tencent’s best chance to catch up with ByteDance, others believe it will be tough for it to become as big as Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

“When you have to start from being a social network app and then enter into the short-video space, you have to build up a whole e-commerce system to support it … I won’t say they can’t get there but it’s very difficult,” Analysys’ Liao said.

But Shawn Yang, managing director at research group Blue Lotus Capital Advisors, is bullish on Channels given the potential of WeChat’s traffic.

WeChat, China’s most popular chat app, has more than a billion active users.

“For example, in Douyin or Kuaishou, you won’t be able to ask your viewers to add you on WeChat. But on Channels, you can quickly add somebody on WeChat,” Yang said.

“This is very beneficial to those who already have their own private traffic on WeChat,” he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

TikTok Fined RUB 3 Million for Violating Russian Law Against Spreading LGBT Propaganda

A Russian court on Tuesday fined ByteDance-owned TikTok RUB 3 million (roughly Rs. 41,50,000) over the social media platform’s refusal to delete content Russian authorities say violates laws against spreading “LGBT propaganda.”

News agencies reported that the case against TikTok was based on accusations that the company was “promoting non-traditional values, LGBT, feminism, and a distorted representation of traditional sexual values” on its platform.

Russia is considering expanding its existing “gay propaganda” law, passed in 2013, which bans any person or entity from promoting homosexual relationships to children. Lawmakers have argued the law should be expanded to include adults as well and fines for exposing minors to “LGBT propaganda” should be increased.

TikTok, found guilty of an administrative offence for failing to delete prohibited content, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Interfax reported that a TikTok representative in the courtroom had insisted the proceedings be terminated, without giving further details.

The fine marks the latest step in Moscow’s long-running dispute with Big Tech, with fines over content, demands over data storage and some outright bans all throttling the influence and reach of Western firms in the country.

Russian authorities say they are defending morality in the face of what they argue are un-Russian liberal values promoted by the West, but human rights activists say the law has been broadly applied to intimidate Russia’s LGBT community.

In August, a Russian court fined streaming service Twitch RUB 2 million (roughly Rs. 26,21,100) as it hosted a short video which is claimed to contain “fake” information about alleged war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Previously, Russia has also repeatedly threatened to fine other social platforms — including Google, Twitter and Wikipedia — which has been accused of hosting “fake” content related to its military campaign in Ukraine.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

TikTok’s Global Security Chief Roland Cloutier to Step Down, Reveals Internal Memo

TikTok’s global chief security officer Roland Cloutier, who oversees cybersecurity, is stepping down from his role but will stay at the company, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

“With our recent announcement about data management changes in the US, it’s time for me to transition from my role as Global Chief Security Officer into a strategic advisory role focusing on the business impact of security and trust programs, working directly with (CEO) Shou, ByteDance (VP of Technology) Dingkun and other senior leaders,” Cloutier wrote in the memo.

TikTok, the video-sharing app owned by China’s ByteDance, hired Cloutier from payroll processing company Automated Data Processing (ADP) in 2020, amid increasing scrutiny from the US regulators on the company’s handling of personal data.

Kim Albarella, a senior member at TikTok’s security team, will serve as interim head of Global Security. Albarella previously worked for ADP for more than a decade.

Meanwhile, the company continue to be under scrutiny by the EU and the US regulators. A few days back, Italy’s data protection authority has formally warned TikTok about an alleged breach of existing European Union rules to safeguard user privacy.

TikTok had told users in recent weeks that it was going to deliver targeted advertising to them from July 13, without requesting consent for using data stored in their devices, the Italian watchdog said.

On the other hand, the US Senate Intelligence Committee chair and top Republican have called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate social media app TikTok and Chinese parent ByteDance due to “repeated misrepresentations” over its handling of US data.

The request on from Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Republican Marco Rubio followed a Buzzfeed report saying the short video app permitted TikTok engineers and executives in China to repeatedly access private data of US users. The senators said such access raised questions over TikTok’s claims to lawmakers and users that the data was protected.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Russian Lawmakers Approve Harsher Rules for Foreign Tech Firms Without Offices, Personal Data Transfer

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday approved a bill providing for stricter penalties for foreign internet companies that fail to open an office in Russia, including fines. Moscow has long sought to exert greater control over technology firms, and disputes over content and data have intensified since it sent armed forces into Ukraine on February 24.

Foreign social media giants with more than 500,000 daily users have been obliged since July 1, 2021, to open offices in Russia or risk penalties ranging up to outright bans.

Now, the turnover fines that Russia has imposed on the likes of Alphabet‘s Google and Meta Platforms for hosting banned content could be applied to companies that fail to open offices, after the lower house passed the bill in the second of three readings.

Fines could be as high as 10 percent of a company’s turnover in Russia from the previous year, rising to up to 20 percent for repeat violations.

The state communications regulator Roskomnadzor last November listed 13 mostly US companies required to set up on Russian soil by the end of the year.

Only Apple, Spotify, Rakuten Group’s messaging app Viber and the photo-sharing app Likeme have fully complied — though Spotify closed its office in March in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and subsequently suspended its streaming service.

Meta, which Russia found guilty of “extremist activity” in March, is no longer listed, and its Facebook and Instagram platforms are banned, although its messaging app WhatsApp is not.

Four other companies have fulfilled at least one other Roskomnadzor requirement but have not established a Russian legal entity or office. Those were Google, Twitter, ByteDance‘s TikTok and Zoom Video Communications, according to the government website.

The chat tool Discord, Amazon‘s live streaming unit Twitch, the messaging app Telegram, the bookmarking service Pinterest and Wikipedia owner Wikimedia Foundation have taken no steps to comply, according to the website.

The new bill would also place restrictions on Russians’ personal data being transferred abroad and require entities planning on doing so to notify the communications regulator in advance.

The law, passed in its second reading by the lower house of parliament, or State Duma, is one of several the government has been working on as Russia deals with the fallout from hefty Western sanctions imposed in response to Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.

“Current legislation practically does not regulate the cross-border transfer of personal data, which poses a significant threat in the current foreign policy situation,” read an explanatory note accompanying the bill.

The bill’s authors say more than 2,500 entities registered in Russia handle personal data and transfer them to other countries, including “unfriendly” nations that have imposed sanctions.

Companies wanting to transfer data abroad will have to notify the regulator, Roskomnadzor, for each country a measure that was softened after a raft of internet companies objected, according to the business outlet Forbes.

Roskomnadzor considers countries that are party to Council of Europe data protection regulation as offering adequate safeguards, along with 29 other mostly African and Asian countries, but not the United States.

Among the “unfriendly” countries approved by Roskomnadzor are numerous European members of the [NATO](https://gadgets360.com/tags/nato) defence alliance as well as Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

The draft still needs to pass a third reading in the Duma and a review by the upper house before President Vladimir Putin can sign it into law.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 

 

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

US Senators Seek Report on Security Review of TikTok a Week After Data Transferred to Oracle

A group of six Republican senators on Friday asked the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about an ongoing Biden administration national security review of social media platform TikTok.

The US government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews deals by foreign acquirers for potential national security risks, in 2020 ordered Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that the US user data could be passed on to China’s communist government.

Last week, TikTok said it has completed migrating information on its US users to servers at Oracle, as it seeks to address US concerns over data integrity.

Senators Tom Cotton, Ben Sasse, Mike Braun, Marco Rubio, Todd Young and Roger Wicker asked Yellen numerous questions saying the administration “has seemingly done nothing to enforce” the August 2020 divestiture order.” They noted “the results of the security reviews, likewise, have not been publicly released after one year.”

The senators want to know “will TikTok be locally managed in the United States?” and “Will the US government have the ability to routinely access and inspect the algorithm’s source code?” It also asks “what assurances does the US government have that TikTok will store US data and adopt privacy policies with adequate protections?”

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former President Donald Trump attempted to block new users from downloading WeChat and TikTok and ban other transactions that would have effectively blocked the apps’ use in the United States but lost a series of court battles.

President Joe Biden in June 2021 withdrew a series of Trump’s executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of the apps and ordered the Commerce Department to conduct a review of security concerns posed by the apps.

The senators said the proposal for TikTok to store its US users’ information without ByteDance access “would do little to address the core security concerns.”

CFIUS has been in extensive discussions with TikTok on security issues, sources have said. A spokesman for Yellen declined to comment Friday.

TikTok is one of the world’s most popular social media apps, with more than 1 billion active users globally, and counts the US as its largest market.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

TikTok Migrates US Users’ Data to Oracle Servers, Ensures Safety of Information

TikTok said it has completed migrating information on its US users to servers at Oracle, in a move that could address US regulatory concerns over data integrity on the popular short video app.

The move, which was first reported by Reuters, comes nearly two years after a US national security panel ordered parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that US user data could be passed on to China’s communist government.

TikTok is one of the world’s most popular social media apps, with more than 1 billion active users globally, and counts the US as its largest market.

The United States has been increasingly scrutinising app developers over the personal data they handle, especially if some of it involves US military or intelligence personnel.

The order to sell off TikTok was not enforced after Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as US president last year.

The panel, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), however, has continued to harbor concerns over data security at TikTok that ByteDance is now hoping to address, Reuters previously reported.

The White House had no immediate comment while the US Treasury declined to comment.

In March, Reuters reported that TikTok was nearing a deal for Oracle to store its US users’ information.

Oracle had discussed acquiring a minority stake in TikTok in 2020, when ByteDance was under US pressure to sell the app. The cloud computing giant now stores all of TikTok’s US user data on Oracle data servers in the United States under the new partnership, TikTok said.

Oracle declined to comment.

Data security team

TikTok had previously been storing its US user data at its own data centres in Virginia, with a backup in Singapore. It will now delete private data on US users from its own data centres and rely fully on Oracle’s US servers, it said.

The Virginia and Singapore centres are still being used to back up the data, the company said.

TikTok has also set up a dedicated US data security team known as “USDS” as a gatekeeper for US user information and ringfencing it from ByteDance, a company spokesperson told Reuters.

Led by Andrew Bonillo, who was an executive at TikTok’s global security department, the USDS currently reports to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, the spokesperson said.

The company is discussing a structure under which the team would operate autonomously and not be under TikTok’s control or supervision, a source told Reuters.

Another senior executive at USDS is Will Farrell, who was previously working under TikTok’s Chief Security Officer Roland Cloutier. The USDS team includes content moderation personnel, engineers, and members from user and product operations.

ByteDance is one of China’s fastest growing startups. It owns the country’s leading news aggregator, Jinri Toutiao, as well as TikTok’s Chinese counterpart Douyin.

In June 2021, Biden withdrew Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok. The Commerce Department is writing new rules on app data security that could potentially lead to restrictions on how apps based abroad use US user data or even ban apps deemed serious security risks.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said last year the administration is “very serious about protecting Americans’ data,” but criticised Trump’s approach.

“Doing some executive order that’s meaningless on TikTok is not the way to do it,” she said.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Elon Musk’s Latest $7 Billion Twitter Funding Could Face US Regulator Scrutiny: Experts

Elon Musk’s decision to accept some foreign investors as part of his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,000 crore) buyout of Twitter runs the risk of inviting the kind of regulatory scrutiny over US national security that social media peer TikTok faced, legal experts say.

Musk disclosed on Thursday that Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange founded by Chinese native Changpeng Zhao, were part of a group of investors that will help him fund the acquisition of Twitter.

This could give the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) an opening to scrutinize the deal for potential national security risks, six regulatory lawyers not involved in the transaction and interviewed by Reuters said. CFIUS is a panel of government agencies and departments that reviews mergers and acquisitions for potential threats to US security.

“To the extent that Musk’s proposed acquisition of Twitter includes foreign investment, it very well could fall under CFIUS jurisdiction,” said Chris Griner, chair of law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP’s national security practice.

A spokesperson for the US Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, declined to comment on whether the national security panel planned to scrutinize Musk’s Twitter deal.

Spokespeople for Musk, bin Talal, Qatar and Binance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Former President Donald Trump’s administration turned to CFIUS in 2020 in a bid to force TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to divest the short video app. His successor Joe Biden abandoned that effort after ByteDance agreed to changes on how the data of US users are stored and protected.

The regulatory lawyers interviewed by Reuters said the risk of CFIUS blocking Musk’s deal is small because he will control Twitter under the proposed takeover and the foreign investors are acquiring relatively small stakes.

They added that their assessment would change were Musk to give the foreign investors influence over the company, through a seat on its board or other means.

The risk is not negligible, however, given that the business of handling personal data by social media companies such as Twitter is typically viewed as critical infrastructure by CFIUS, the lawyers said.

“One of the items that’s considered sensitive personal data, is non-public electronic communications. So that would be email, messaging or chat communications between users. Twitter allows you to do that,” law firm Vinson & Elkins LLP partner Richard Sofield said.

One area of potential scrutiny for CFIUS, the lawyers said, could be Musk’s business dealings with foreign governments hostile to free speech or keen to overtake the United States technologically. Tesla, the electric car maker he leads, relies heavily on China, for example, to manufacture and sell its vehicles.

China blocked Twitter in 2009 but many Chinese officials have been active on the social media platform. Some of them have complained that the company’s efforts to restrict misinformation have targeted them unfairly.

“One of the considerations would be whether or not there will be an opportunity for China to leverage its business activity in order to achieve a desired outcome,” Sofield added.

BROADCOM PRECEDENT

There is precedent for CFIUS shooting down a deal based on the risk that an acquirer’s business ties could compromise them, the lawyers said. Trump blocked chip maker Broadcom $117 billion (roughly Rs. 8,99,595 crore) acquisition of US peer Qualcomm 2018 after CFIUS raised concerns about the deal.

Broadcom was a publicly listed company with US shareholders that was headquartered in Singapore, but the White House fretted that Broadcom’s relationship with “third-party foreign entities” would set the US back in its technology race with China.

Nevena Simidjiyska, a regulatory lawyer at law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, said it was possible CFIUS would look into whether Musk or other US investors in the Twitter deal can be influenced by foreign entities in a similar way.

“CFIUS may determine that even US investors in Twitter fall under CFIUS review if they are controlled by foreign parties,” Simidjiyska said.

Musk’s Twitter deal does not face the most common type of regulatory risk seen in mergers and acquisitions — pushback from antitrust regulators. The world’s richest man has no media holdings, and regulatory experts have said they do not expect the deal to face significant antitrust scrutiny.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version