Douyin and Kuaishou Fined $31,110 for Promoting Overconsumption
According to Qichacha, Beijing Kuaishou Technology Co., Ltd., and Beijing Microlive Vision Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of Douyin, were fined 200,000 yuan ($31,110) for violating Chinese advertising laws. The penalty dolled out to the companies was given by the Beijing Haidian Administration for Market Regulation.
Both companies were fined for publishing a financial video advertisement on their platforms, promoting incorrect orientation such as overconsumption, and having serious value problems.
Among them, Kuaishou was given an administrative penalty of 200,000 yuan and has had 74,202 yuan of illegal income confiscated; Douyin was fined 200,000 yuan and had 39,436 yuan of illegal income confiscated.
Short video platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou are becoming more and more popular as their content proves valuable to marketers and publishers. Some contents, however, appear to have issues with displaying proper values, promote money worship and feed a hedonistic competitive psychology, including fantasizing about getting rich overnight.
At the beginning of this year, Douyin and Kuaishou said that they would crack down on content promoting money worship and would disable and banaccounts suspected of deliberately showing off wealth, maliciously speculating or violating public order and good customs.
This July, JD Finance was fined 400,000 yuan for publishing advertisements that promoted incorrect guidance to the public such as excessive consumption.
