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Ever wanted to take a peek at videos on Douyin, China's original version of TikTok? Now you can—if you use a computer's web browser.
A quick test of Douyin's website with a US IP address confirms that the site is viewable from the US. It displays videos in landscape orientation, unlike TikTok, which is locked into its signature portrait orientation on both web browsers and its mobile app. While Douyin prompts viewers to create an account, it's easy to avoid this and scroll through the main feed of content. Scanning the QR code on the page takes viewers to the app store, but it's not possible to install Douyin on a US iOS device.
The Google Play Store's Douyin listing is viewable from US web browsers. Douyin's website also loads on a US iOS device, but it doesn't allow users to watch videos like the web version. Instead, it prompts users to install the app. Apple's App Store still has it blocked, though, and won't show the app's store page. Instead, it displays the standard message: "This app is currently not available in your country or region."
Like TikTok, Douyin's web version has a personalized feed and a "following" feed. It also has a main home tab, a profile tab, and tabs that appear to be for live streams, gaming, informational, music, food, and entertainment content. Compared to TikTok, that's a lot more categories for users to choose from. TikTok users can use its search function and hashtags to find desired content, however.
Some US lawmakers who want TikTok banned have criticized it for allegedly offering dangerous content to US users, claiming that Douyin users get more educational content. Without logging in, a brief test showed Douyin videos that appeared to present movies about plane heists and anime videos with characters in prison. Clips of zoo animals, women's faces, and women dancing were also encountered on the main home feed.
Some more adult-appropriate content appeared as well, like a video of two girls shoving each other in the street and another of a water gun that's designed to look like a submachine gun being used to wash a car. This quick test didn't provide educational videos, but it did offer a lot of cutdowns of preexisting media as well as a random assortment of real-life footage.
It's unclear when exactly Douyin's website and videos became so freely visible on US web browsers. Writer and TikTok user Jules Terpak, who noticed the change and posted a video of a Douyin feed on Twitter, notes that the site wasn't this accessible before.
"Not sure when they did this (I last checked this time last year) but they likely did so to create a sense of transparency," Terpak writes.
But Douyin's visibility to US web users may be short-lived. The US House of Representatives are set to vote on a nationwide bill Wednesday that would impact TikTok, and President Biden has already said he would support its passage. While many Republicans support the bill, both Donald Trump and Elon Musk have criticized it for different reasons.
The bill, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would ban TikTok and any foreign adversary-owned application from being accessed on US web browsers or mobile apps unless TikTok severs its ties to China. China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson has reportedly criticized the bill. But as Reuters reports, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines believes there is a chance that China's Communist Party could use TikTok to influence US federal elections set to take place later this year.
"We cannot rule out that the CCP would use it," Haines said on the matter.
This week, TikTok CEO Sou Chew has been lobbying against the bill in Washington, D.C. The social media firm plans to take legal action to the best of its ability before considering a ByteDance separation, Bloomberg reports.