You have been living under a rock, although it’s not your fault. There is depressingly little information exchanged between east and west, other than reports on fringe stuff that emphasizes our otherness. If you knew anyone under age 20 living in nearly any Asian country (maybe India, Pakistan, Bangladesh excluded), they could tell you about Douyin/TikTok.

This was helpful: http://bytedance.com/products/

It's a Chinese internet service, so it's unlikely that you've heard of it outside of China.

> Bytedance Ltd provides online information and contents. The Company serves customers in China.

Seems we never heard of it because we‘re not in their target market.

Among other platforms, they run musical.ly and TikTok.

I'm not in the western world, but News Republic is on plenty of phones around here, as part of the initial bloatware. I have not used the product myself, so this is not a comment on the quality of the product.