Popular short video platform Douyin to roll out anti-addiction features
Video app will lock itself after two hours of use in a day
Chinese video platform Douyin has a problem most apps can only dream of: People are using it for too long.
Now the app is rolling out “anti-addiction” features to try and cut down the amount of time people are spending on Douyin, one of the country’s most popular platforms for short videos as well as live streaming. Under the plan, users who spend more than 90 continuous minutes in the app will get an alert, while watching for over two hours will lock the app entirely -- though it can be unlocked again by entering a password.
But it is unusual when you consider that Douyin made its name as a short video app, with clips limited to just 15 seconds -- a little like the now-dead app Vine. You’d have to watch 360 of those videos in a row to hit Douyin’s 90 minute warning.
It comes at a tough time for Douyin’s parent company, Bytedance. Its popular news aggregator Toutiao is under fire from authorities, as the government takes an increasingly harsh line against platforms that it says stray from “core socialist values.”
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