TikTok strives to shape its image as an international application. But a satirical meme that took off around April revolves around the farce of Chinese applications and of China itself.
Hundreds of videos praising China and its president Xi Jinping were published on the application by users mainly in the United States and Europe, to the rhythm of the Chinese national anthem. With the Chinese national flag and an image of Xi in the background, the teens pretend to interact with the Chinese leader, kissing him on the cheek, or raising a toast together.
Some users say they make these excessive videos because they believe they have been forbidden by the shadows or to be presented on For You feedsTikToks applications with personalized recommendations for users. Prohibition of shadows is a practice supposed to be deployed by many social media platforms to reduce the visibility of a publication or even prevent it from being seen by other users, without the uploader being aware of the ban, because they can still publish freely. By posting these videos, often with a hashtag # I love China, some believe that they will gain views and followers, because China is the seat of ByteDance, the parent company of TikToks, the most precious startup in the world.
But for many creators, it’s basically a joke.
My views were down, so I wanted to see if a video praising China would do well in the algorithm and oddly enough, Matt Norris, a 19-year-old TikTok user in the United States, told Quartz. Norris, who has about 9,000 subscribers to the app, saw his videoconference in China, which he says things like: I love China Xi Jinping is my best friend in fluent Mandarin, become one of his most popular clips popular.
Norris said he created the video, posted on April 12, primarily to reflect on Chinese propaganda, although he says there are likely to be people who really think that posting such content will help increase their visibility on the Internet. application. Some users have added the hashtag #ilovechina to videos that have nothing to do with China, possibly because it garnered nearly 50 million views on Thursday May 28.
None of us really understand the algorithm [of TikTok], so we’re still trying to figure out what he likes, said Norris. Like other platforms, TikToks’ algorithms are closely guarded secrets, but popularity seems closer at hand than on some other platforms, wild theories on how users can get their recommended videos on the app.
For Cher Lau, 18, a Hong Kong woman who attends a university in the United Kingdom, her video on China is also a joke. Before this video, she posted another on the controversial national security law that Beijing plans to implement in Hong Kong, a measure that could stifle dissent and result in the permanent loss of its special status for the territory.
the previous videoIt exploded, she said, and received comments from Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese, opposed to the government and the government. So I thought it would be fun to make this latest video satirizing the CCP. [Chinese Communist Party], she explained to Quartz.
It is not clear that users who posted such videos have been banned in the shade, or whether praising China really does anything for their visibility. In certain cases, Chinese users’ videos received much lower views than their non-Chinese videos.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
Although the meme can be seen as another example of TikTok users’ relentless efforts to break application algorithms, it also recalls the difficulties encountered by the application when trying to distance itself from its Chinese parent. Its global significance has come (exclusive member of Quartz) as US-Chinese relations deteriorate steadily and American lawmakers are increasingly looking antagonistly at Chinese tech companies, fearing that they will endanger the data of US users and national security.
In this context, the popularity of TikToks in the United States from 2018 has led to speculation that it censors content that Beijing does not promote and that it could share user data with its parent company in mainland China. TikTok firmly rejected the two claims.
Last week, the app hired a former Disney executive to be the new CEO, and ByteDance went so far as to claim that it is not a Chinese company at all, noting that the company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, according to a press release from the New York Times.
Despite such efforts, its users still seem to be fully aware of its relationship with ByteDance. Zhang Yiming, the discreet founder of the Chinese unicorn, was introduced as background image in some TikTok videos in which the creators are urging people to add hashtags related to China such as #chinaisawesome to go viral, since Zhang is Chinese.