TikTok’s Chinese sibling app Douyin implemented a new “hotspot content” verification mechanism on Monday, in what it said was a move to strengthen community regulation and governance of the platform, which has 800 million daily active users. In a notice posted by Douyin’s security unit on its official WeChat account, the platform said it would ask accounts involved in “trending events of high social concern” to provide proof of identification; failure to do so within 24 hours would see their accounts blocked. The rules also require content creators to clearly label fictional stories, with users who fail to do so and cause misunderstandings among the public subject to penalties ranging from a 30-day ban to an indefinite suspension of their accounts. The moves come after the social media accounts of a top influencer called Maoyibei were deleted from multiple platforms following her widely shared story of a boy and his missing homework books in Paris that was reportedly fabricated. [Douyin, in Chinese]
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