(Yicai) May 13 -- Douyin, the Chinese sister app of TikTok also owned by ByteDance, is not going to start restricting the publication of content on current affairs, finance, the law, and healthcare, but will stop feeding adverts to such accounts, said a representative of the company.

The change in policy at China’s largest short-video platform involves commercial authorization and has nothing to do with content creation, the person clarified to Yicai today following confusion about the new rule.

Yicai had learned earlier that some content creators were notified by Douyin that from May 15 it would no longer allow accounts that post on politics, finance, legal affairs, or healthcare or have a large number of followers and much influence to authorize the platform’s advertising tools such as Juliang Qianhu or Juliang Bendi to insert ads.

The change will not impact the other ways that content creators make money, such as commercial partnerships, the representative said. They can still make content to promote products or host livestreamed shows to sell goods.

Editor: Emmi Laine