ByteDance

The move, which the company said will serve to improve consumer safety, is another step for ByteDance towards making Douyin a fully-fledged e-commerce platform.

The company is currently hiring for more than 200 Singapore-based positions, including roles for Thai and Vietnamese speakers.

The move comes amid significant disruption in China’s search engine industry, with Tencent buying Sogou and ByteDance releasing Toutiao Search.

ByteDance, the app’s Chinese parent company, is discussing alternatives to a sale of TikTok’s entire US operation, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Haokan, which is similar to Baidu’s Xigua, had 110 million daily active users as of last November.

Weishi launched its Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival Shopping Season in a bid to get more farmers selling their produce on the the platform.

TikTok’s recommendation algorithm is its secret sauce and this is what its prospective buyers are after.

SoftBank has held discussions with India’s two largest telecom operators for buying out TikTok India in August.