Fraudulent activity on Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok, run by the same parent company, ByteDance — has increased dramatically over the past five years, targeting people of all ages, officials said on Monday.
In 2019 only eight cases of fraud related to Douyin were reported to the National Police Agency’s (NPA) 165 anti-fraud hotline, agency data showed.
However, the case count has climbed rapidly, with 300 reported in 2020, 2,733 last year and 4,250 this year as of September, the data showed.
Photo: Reuters
Fraudulent accounts on Douyin often post videos of investment “experts,” or attractive people singing and dancing to draw attention, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said, adding that the accounts contact people via the Line or WeChat messaging apps in attempts to defraud them.
The tactics include fake investment schemes, fake jobs to steal bank account information, fake shopping ads and even feigning friendship to sell game cards, the bureau said.
Although Douyin is generally considered to be favored by young people, there has been a significant rise over the past two years in the number of people over 80 being affected by scams on the social media platform, police said.
Douyin’s primary audience in Taiwan can be split into two groups: young people — encompassing children and teenagers — and elderly people, the Taiwan Network Information Center’s Taiwan Internet Report released last year said.
Mobile phones make it convenient and easy for elderly people, who are used to audiovisual content from television, to engage with short videos and be drawn into scams on Douyin, the report said.
Douyin also has a lot of “cognitive warefare” content aimed at brainwashing Taiwanese into recognizing the Chinese Communist Party regime, it said.
Some academics have suggested that Taiwan ban the app to eliminate the risk of fraud and curb ideological infiltration by Beijing.
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
RSS