ByteDance’s Douyin app, which features 15-second videos and is known as TikTok outside of China, has started to allow a subset of users to share videos lasting up to 5 minutes, presumably to diversify its content and attract new users, KrASIA parent company 36Kr reported Tuesday.
Among the first users authorized to upload such videos were 13 fellows with the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
The person in charge of Douyin’s science communication section told 36Kr that five-minute videos would allow them to share richer scientific information.
Before this, only users with more than 1,000 followers could ask the platform to open a channel for them to upload videos lasting up to one minute.