Amazon.com Inc’s livestreaming site Twitch launched its own short-form video platform, a week after Washington passed a law that threatens the future of the social-media service TikTok in the US.
Creators on Twitch typically livestream themselves playing video games or chatting with audiences, sometimes for up to eight hours at a time.
The new service, called Discovery Feed, allows viewers to scroll through short clips taken from those longer videos. It appears as a new tab on Twitch’s mobile app.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Discovery Feed has a way to go before becoming a significant rival to TikTok. Early posts viewed by Bloomberg included an Arizona State University professor welcoming students to class and a streamer getting attacked on the street.
Unlike TikTok, Twitch creators generally do not upload their own short-form content. Instead users pick out funny or entertaining segments from creators’ livestreams and turn them into clips.
The Discovery Feed will be “personalized based on a viewer’s watch history and real-time interactions,” a Twitch spokesperson said.
Streamers will not receive a cut of the advertising revenue that appears on Discovery Feed because the commercials appear between their clips and not directly in them, the spokesperson said.
TikTok is a division of China’s ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動).
The US Congress and US President Joe Biden’s administration are forcing ByteDance to divest the service or face a ban out of concern that China’s government could use the app for propaganda or spying on US residents.
The app has 170 million monthly users in the US.
A majority of Americans believe that China uses TikTok to shape US public opinion, a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,022 US adults nationwide showed.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents to the two-day poll, which was conducted online and closed on Tuesday, agreed with a statement that the Chinese government uses TikTok to “influence American public opinion.”
The survey showed that 13 percent disagreed, while the rest were unsure or did not answer the question.
Republicans were more likely than Democrats to see China as using the app to affect opinions in the US, the poll found.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 50 percent of respondents supported banning TikTok, while 32 percent opposed a ban and the rest were unsure.
The poll only surveyed US adults and does not reflect the views of people under the age of 18, who make up a significant portion of TikTok's users in the US.
About six in 10 respondents aged 40 or older supported a ban, compared with about four in 10 aged 18 to 39.
The poll also showed that 46 percent agreed with a statement that China is using the app to "spy on everyday Americas," an allegation Beijing has denied.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in