The suspension of new registrations has not previously been disclosed. Some content providers have complained on social media that they have been unable to register for new Toutiao accounts. The cause of the blockage could not be discovered right away. The Toutiao app can still be downloaded and used by existing users.
ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment. Given the sensitivity of the situation, the sources declined to be identified. Toutiao’s operations are overseen by the Chinese Cyberspace Administration (CAC) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which have not responded to demands for comment. On issues ranging from the propriety of content to anticompetitive behavior and, increasingly, data security, China has begun reining in its huge and once free-wheeling “platform economy.” The CAC announced a probe into Didi Global earlier this month, citing cybersecurity and national security concerns, as well as a prohibition on new user registrations, just days after the company went public in a US$4.4 billion New York stock offering, causing a stir in the industry and among investors.
Didi and its connected apps were removed from Chinese app stores as a result of the regulator’s action.
According to Reuters, Toutiao is ByteDance’s second-largest ad revenue source in China after Douyin, accounting for roughly 20% of revenues in the country last year, or 36 billion yuan (US$5.57 billion). Last year, ByteDance made $34.3 billion in total revenue. When new users try to join up for Toutiao, they get the following message: “The system is presently being serviced. The registration system is currently down.” A similar notification is sent to new content authors. Jinri Toutiao, which translates as “today’s headline” in Chinese, provides customised news feeds through an artificial intelligence-driven recommendation engine.
This isn’t the first time the news aggregator has been fined by the government. Toutiao was removed from app stores for three weeks by Chinese officials in 2018, alleging “vulgar content.” According to insiders, ByteDance, which was recently valued at US$300 billion in private transactions, sought to float some of its businesses, including TikTok’s Chinese equivalent Douyin, in Hong Kong earlier this year. ByteDance stated in April that company had no ambitions to list itself in the near future. ByteDance’s humor app Neihan Duanzi was permanently shut down in 2018 for containing “vulgar” and “improper” content that sparked “strong hostility among users,” according to the country’s broadcasting watchdog. (One US dollar equals 6.4653 Chinese yuan renminbi) (By Beijing newsroom; Tony Munroe and Muralikumar Anantharaman, editors)/n
