抖音式“無意義”短視頻能征服全球嗎？

A Chinese internet company that serves up homemade break-dancing videos, dishy news bites and goofy hashtag challenges has become one of the planet’s most richly valued start-ups, with a roughly $75 billion price tag. And it has big plans for storming phone screens across the rest of the globe, too.

一家提供業(yè)余霹靂舞視頻、八卦新聞報道和傻乎乎的標簽挑戰(zhàn)的中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司，已經(jīng)成為這個星球上最有價值的初創(chuàng)公司之一，估值大約為750億美元。它還制定了一個席卷全球其他地方的手機屏幕的宏大計劃。

You may not have heard of the company, Bytedance. You may never have used any of its breezy, colorful apps. But your nearest teenager is probably already obsessed with Musical.ly, the video-sharing platform that Bytedance bought for around $1 billion last year and folded into its own video service, TikTok.

你可能沒有聽說過這個叫字節(jié)跳動的公司。你可能永遠不會使用它那些輕松愉快、豐富多彩的手機應(yīng)用。但是你身邊的青少年可能已經(jīng)在沉迷于Musical.ly了，這是去年字節(jié)跳動以10億美元收購的視頻分享平臺，并且將它融入了自己的視頻服務(wù)TikTok。

“Frankly, it’s meaningless stuff,” said Dong Yaxin, 20, a college student in Beijing who says he is active every day on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Bytedance says that more than half a billion people worldwide use Douyin or TikTok at least once a month.

“說白了，拍一些沒有意義的東西。，”20歲的北京大學生董亞欣表示，他每天都在使用TikTok的中文版抖音。字節(jié)跳動表示，全球有超過5億人每月至少使用抖音或TikTok一次。

Cute pet videos. Lip-syncing to pop ear worms. Glossy digital effects ...

可愛的寵物視頻。對口型演唱流行入腦金曲。漂亮的數(shù)字特效……

... and people who are very good at doing the robot.

……以及非常擅長跳機器舞的人。

“There isn’t such a strong sense of purpose on Douyin,” Mr. Dong said. “That’s actually what’s so good about it.”

“抖音的目的性沒有那么強，”董亞欣說：“這個反而我覺得是一個很好的地方。”

But even for a purveyor of fluff, crossing the tech world’s most treacherous divide will not be carefree. There are two major internets right now: China’s and the rest of the world’s. Beijing’s tough rules on content and operations have long made China difficult, even impossible, terrain for American internet companies.

但即使對于膚淺娛樂的傳播者來說，跨越科技界最危險的鴻溝也不會是無憂無慮的?，F(xiàn)在世界上有兩大互聯(lián)網(wǎng)：中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)和世界其他地區(qū)的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。對于美國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司來說，北京對內(nèi)容和運營的嚴格規(guī)定長期以來令中國成為一個困難、甚至是不可能的地帶。

Those rules have also largely penned in homegrown titans like Tencent, whose overseas expansion plans have been hamstrung by the unique demands of catering to China’s online population.

這些規(guī)則也在很大程度上制約了騰訊等本土巨頭，其海外擴張計劃因迎合中國網(wǎng)民的獨特需求而受挫。

So far, Bytedance — which recently secured $3 billion in new funding from SoftBank and other heavyweight investors — has found a rare measure of success in both internets by doing things a little differently.

到目前為止，字節(jié)跳動最近從軟銀(SoftBank)和其他重量級投資者那里獲得了30億美元的新資金，它通過稍微有些不同的做法找到了在兩個互聯(lián)網(wǎng)取得成功的罕見方式。

For one, it is making no pretense to be bridging the two digital realms.

首先，它沒有假裝要彌合兩個數(shù)字領(lǐng)域。

Users of Douyin are entirely walled off from users of TikTok and vice versa; the better to manage the material that people in China can see. Beijing’s tightening controls have made these decidedly un-fun times to be in the business of fun.

抖音的用戶完全與TikTok的用戶隔離，反之亦然;這樣能更好地管理中國人能看到的素材。北京的緊縮控制措施使這些相當無趣的事情進入了這個靠玩樂掙錢的產(chǎn)業(yè)。

Video game companies, celebrity gossip bloggers and live-streaming stars have all been through the wringer recently as the government works harder to stamp out cultural content that it deems unhealthy or unwholesome. The crackdown has not spared Bytedance — the authorities ordered the company’s joke-sharing app offline in April this year.

視頻游戲公司、名人八卦博主和直播明星最近都在遭受磨難，因為政府更加努力地消滅它認為不健康的文化內(nèi)容。打擊行動也沒有放過字節(jié)跳動——當局在今年4月下令，讓該公司的笑話共享應(yīng)用程序下線。

The company has also crossed borders with relative ease by focusing on light, affirming fare, and on attracting young — very young — users. But the Chinese Communist Party is not alone in having discovered a sordid side to Bytedance’s platforms.

該公司還通過專注于輕松、積極的內(nèi)容，以及吸引年輕——非常年輕——的用戶，從而相對輕松地越過邊界。然而，看到字節(jié)跳動平臺骯臟一面的不只是中國共產(chǎn)黨。

Both before the company bought Musical.ly and since, horrified parents and others have reported finding adolescent users showing off suggestive dance moves on the app, mouthing lyrics about rough sex and worse. Police in Britain have investigated reports of adults propositioning children through Musical.ly.

在該公司購買Musical.ly之前和之后，都有驚恐的父母和其他人報告，發(fā)現(xiàn)青少年用戶在該應(yīng)用程序上展示有性暗示的舞蹈動作，說出帶有粗暴性行為和更糟糕內(nèi)容的歌詞。英國警方調(diào)查了成年人通過Musical.ly向兒童提出猥褻要求的報告。

Bytedance added new privacy settings and parental controls to TikTok in June. But if the company, which declined to comment for this article, cannot expand its ability to manage such issues at the same rapid clip at which it is drawing new users, its products could become the bane of many more parents and governments in many more countries.

字節(jié)跳動在6月份為TikTok添加了新的隱私設(shè)置和家長控制。但是，如果該公司無法擴大管理此類問題的能力——公司拒絕為本文發(fā)表評論——同時又在迅速吸引新用戶，那么其產(chǎn)品可能會在更多國家成為家長和政府的麻煩。

Their children might not care.

孩子們可能不會在乎。

Kang Sae-eun, 14, an eighth grader in Seoul, loves watching other young South Koreans on TikTok. There’s the girl who makes crazy faces, and the excellent dancer. There’s the cool girl with short hair — real “girl crush” material, she said.

14歲的姜世恩(Kang Sae-eun，音)是首爾的一名八年級學生，她喜歡在TikTok上觀看其他年輕的韓國人。有個很會做鬼臉的女孩，還有一個優(yōu)秀的舞者。她說，有一個很酷的短發(fā)女孩——絕對是能“迷倒”女孩那種。

They are funny and uninhibited, Sae-eun said. And best of all, they are regular kids like her.

姜世恩說，她們很有趣，不受約束。最重要的是，她們是像她一樣的普通孩子。

“It is much harder for young people like elementary school students to become famous on the better-known platforms, like YouTube, Facebook or Instagram, all of which I also use,” she said.

“對于像小學生這樣的年輕人來說，在YouTube、Facebook或Instagram這樣的知名平臺上成名更困難，所有這些我也都在使用，”她說。

Sae-eun said she didn’t realize that TikTok was made in China, which raises what might be the most interesting question about Bytedance: How did a company that is further democratizing self-expression come out of sternly undemocratic China in the first place?

姜世恩說，她并沒有意識到TikTok是中國的，這引起了關(guān)于字節(jié)跳動的最有趣的問題：一個在推動自我表達民主化的公司，是如何從一個極度不民主的中國誕生的呢?

Bytedance, which was founded in 2012, did not set out to dominate the market for bite-size videos. For many years, the company’s best-known product was not Douyin but a news aggregator called Jinri Toutiao, which uses machine learning to figure out what users like, then feeds them more of it.

字節(jié)跳動成立于2012年，一開始并不是為了主導短視頻市場。多年來，該公司最知名的產(chǎn)品不是抖音，而是一個名為今日頭條的新聞聚合器，它使用機器學習來弄清楚用戶喜歡什么，然后更多地提供它們。

In China, few media outlets command much loyalty among readers. That means an aggregator is a valuable and timesaving way to figure out what to read.

在中國，很少有媒體向讀者要求很大的忠誠度。這意味著新聞聚合器是一種有價值且省時的方法，可以找出想閱讀的內(nèi)容。

After a while, though, Beijing realized that an app that gave people exactly what they wanted ended up giving them a lot of not-very-wholesome stuff.

不過，過了一段時間，北京意識到有一個應(yīng)用程序給了人們他們想要的東西，最后卻給了他們很多不那么健康的東西。

Last December, after China’s internet regulator accused Toutiao of spreading “pornographic” information, Bytedance halted updates to several sections of the app and removed or suspended hundreds of content creators. A few months later, Toutiao was temporarily removed from app stores for unspecified reasons. And Bytedance’s joke-sharing app, Neihan Duanzi, was shut down entirely.

去年12月，在中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)監(jiān)管機構(gòu)指控今日頭條傳播“色情”信息之后，字節(jié)跳動暫停了該應(yīng)用程序的幾個部分的更新，并刪除或暫停了數(shù)百個內(nèi)容創(chuàng)建者。幾個月后，由于不明原因，今日頭條暫時從應(yīng)用商店中刪除。字節(jié)跳動的笑話共享應(yīng)用程序內(nèi)涵段子完全被關(guān)閉了。

In a lengthy letter of apology, the company’s founder and chief executive, Zhang Yiming, vowed to increase the number of employees moderating content to 10,000 from 6,000.

在一封很長的道歉信中，該公司創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官張一鳴發(fā)誓要將管理內(nèi)容的員工人數(shù)從6000人增加到一萬人。

“The product went astray, and content appeared that did not accord with core socialist values,” Mr. Zhang wrote.

“產(chǎn)品走錯了路，出現(xiàn)了與社會主義核心價值觀不符的內(nèi)容，”張一鳴寫道。

By then, Bytedance had another rising star in its stable.

但那時，字節(jié)跳動的馬廄里又有了一顆冉冉升起的新星。

Douyin was not even Bytedance’s first video app when it was released in 2016. But in the somewhat arbitrary, mildly mysterious way in which these things happen, it became huge.

抖音在2016年發(fā)布時甚至不是字節(jié)跳動的第一個視頻應(yīng)用程序。但是，在這些事情發(fā)生的過程中，它以某種隨機而又有些神秘的方式，開始變得龐大。

The app is engineered for swift, maximal addictiveness.

該應(yīng)用程序?qū)榭焖俣畲蠡某砂a而設(shè)計。

Open Douyin or TikTok and you are plunged right into a video. Swipe up to get another, each refresh of the screen providing a dopamine jolt. The videos fill your phone display entirely, blocking the clock at the top and preventing you from seeing how many hours you have spent watching puppies and comedy skits and synchronized dancing.

打開抖音或TikTok，你就會直接進入一段視頻。手指向上滑動就可以獲得另一個，每次刷新屏幕，都是一陣多巴胺快感。這些視頻完全填滿了你的手機顯示屏，擋住了頂部的時鐘，讓你無法看到自己花了多少小時觀看小狗、喜劇小品和整齊的舞蹈。

Satsuki Hatashita, a 20-year-old college student in western Japan, has been hooked for months. She now knows not to use the app before taking a shower. “I wouldn’t be able to shower for a long time, until I finally stopped watching TikTok,” she said.

日本西部20歲的大學生畑下五月(Satsuki Hatashita，音)已經(jīng)連續(xù)數(shù)月迷戀這個應(yīng)用。她現(xiàn)在才明白，洗澡之前不要使用這個應(yīng)用。“我會有很長一段時間無法去洗澡，直到我終于停止看TikTok，”她說。

She, too, was surprised to learn that the app was Chinese.

她也驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)這個應(yīng)用是中國的。

People like Ms. Hatashita have given Bytedance confidence in its march overseas. The company has opened offices in Japan, Brazil, India, the United States and beyond.

像畑下這樣的人給了字節(jié)跳動向海外進發(fā)的信心。該公司已在日本、巴西、印度、美國及其他地區(qū)開設(shè)辦事處。

Still, Chinese staff stationed in China oversee significant aspects of Bytedance’s international apps. They even produce some culturally specific content, such as push notifications suggesting videos to watch. The company is hiring speakers of more than a dozen languages, including Portuguese, Polish, Malay and Arabic, for positions in China, according to an online posting.

字節(jié)跳動國際應(yīng)用的重要方面仍然由駐留在中國的中國員工負責。他們甚至會制作一些針對不同文化的內(nèi)容，例如建議觀看視頻的推送通知。據(jù)在線發(fā)布的消息，該公司正在招聘十幾種語言的使用者，包括葡萄牙語、波蘭語、馬來語和阿拉伯語。

An episode this year points to the importance, for Bytedance, of having people on the ground in at least one area: government relations.

今年的一件事讓字節(jié)跳動明白，至少在政府關(guān)系這個領(lǐng)域，在當?shù)赜腥宿k事是很重要的。

In July, the authorities in Indonesia temporarily blocked TikTok for hosting what they called “pornography, inappropriate content and blasphemy.” The Indonesian government had contacted TikTok’s Singapore office to give a few days’ warning. But it didn’t receive a response until after the app was shut down, Rudiantara, Indonesia’s minister of information, said in an interview.

7月，印度尼西亞當局暫時屏蔽了TikTok，因為它提供他們所謂的“色情、不恰當?shù)膬?nèi)容和褻瀆行為”。印度尼西亞政府聯(lián)系了TikTok的新加坡辦事處，發(fā)出了幾天的警告。但是，印度尼西亞信息部長魯?shù)习菜?Rudiantara)在接受采訪時表示，直到該應(yīng)用被關(guān)閉后，政府才收到回復。

Bytedance’s recent hires suggest that it wants to avoid similar incidents. Instagram’s head of public policy for the Asia-Pacific region, Helena Lersch, recently resigned to become Bytedance’s director for global public policy. Facebook’s public policy leads in Indonesia and Japan recently left to join Bytedance, too.

字節(jié)跳動最近的招聘活動表示，它希望避免類似的事件。Instagram的亞太地區(qū)公共政策主管海倫娜·萊爾施(Helena Lersch)最近辭去職位，擔任字節(jié)跳動的全球公共政策主管職務(wù)。最近，F(xiàn)acebook在印度尼西亞和日本的公共政策主管也加入了字節(jié)跳動。

Before Douyin took off, China’s internet didn’t have a reigning social platform dedicated to short, easy-to-make videos. In the rest of the world’s internet, where Instagram, Snapchat and others are already popular, TikTok faces stiff competition.

在抖音騰飛之前，中國的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)并沒有一個專注于簡短、易于制作的視頻并且獨占鰲頭的社交平臺。在世界其他地方的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上，Instagram，Snapchat和其他類似平臺已經(jīng)很受歡迎，TikTok面臨著激烈的競爭。

For Tao Ni, a 25-year-old newspaper reporter in eastern China, Tencent’s messaging app WeChat has already become more of a tool for work than a fun way to kill time. Weibo, a popular Twitter-like platform, can be wearying. But not Douyin, Ms. Tao said.

對于中國東部25歲的報紙記者陶倪來說，騰訊的消息應(yīng)用程序微信已經(jīng)成為一種工具，而不是一種消磨時間的有趣方式。微博是一個類似Twitter的流行平臺，它可能會讓人厭倦。但是陶倪說，抖音卻絕對不會。

It’s because each video is so short, she said, that she can end up spending hours on what amounts to channel-surfing. “Anything longer than 15 seconds, and I might start to feel tired.”

那是因為每個視頻都很短，她說，她最終可能花費幾個小時瀏覽各個頻道。“超過15秒的就可能會覺得疲勞。”