When Tik Tok puts a "tight ring" on anchors

The consequence of free posting on Douyin is frequent chaos. The emergence of "health points" has revolutionized the live broadcast industry. Who can continue to stay strong in the live broadcast industry under strict rules?

1. After the bubble bursts, who will have the last laugh?

On January 3, 2024, Douyin announced that the new version of the "health score" penalty for live broadcasts will officially take effect. This "strictest new rule" not only marks that Douyin's management of live broadcast content has entered a new stage, but also seems to imply a new change that the live broadcast industry will usher in. Now that the new rule has been implemented for more than two weeks, many anchors have to change, saying that "they can't speak anymore", and some anchors have posted the "highest score of 120 points" obtained by professional anchors. From the user side, most of the discussion areas related to the new rules have a positive attitude towards this, and there are many comments such as "it should have been rectified long ago" and "there are too many vulgar ones, and it really needs to be regulated." However, there are also many users who believe that there will always be loopholes in the rules and "there is little practical significance." Regardless of the effectiveness of the implementation of the rules, as industry supervision tightens, multiple live broadcast platforms have begun to update and improve platform rules, and conduct internal governance for violations such as false propaganda and vulgar hype. Against this background, the bubble in the live broadcast industry is gradually receding, and the track is about to usher in a new turning point, and anchors and MCN companies that cannot keep up with the speed of change will be eliminated.

2. Who is worried about your favorite anchor?

It is understood that on the day when Douyin's "Healthy Points" officially took effect, 303 anchors had their gift function disabled, nearly 5,000 anchors had their live broadcast recommendations reduced, their functions restricted, or even their live broadcast rights permanently revoked, while 27,500 anchors passed the professional or premium application. In fact, after the new Douyin rules came into effect, there were a lot of related discussions and video content on Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Douyin.

In the comments section of the video, there were many comments like "What should we do about this, Ah Mei?", "Chen Ze is sweating profusely", "Qin Shiji should really write a sticker to remind himself this time", and all of them mentioned game anchors. "Game anchors often mix in some swear words during live broadcasts, and many fans are even attracted by this live broadcast style."

Taozi often watches game live broadcasts. She found that recently many game anchors have been more careful about their language during live broadcasts. Some anchors even "slam on the brakes" when they are about to say swear words. "Many fans say that the anchors are about to be sick of holding it in. After all, health points are quite important. Many anchors forget to be careful with their words and actions when they are excited when playing games. Now they can only correct it forcibly." In fact, in addition to game anchors who have been "nominated" repeatedly, many bloggers who skirt the rules and sell fakes have been repeatedly @ed by netizens, and they said, "It is recommended to deduct the points of such vulgar anchors at one time" and "Quickly close the live broadcast room that sells fakes".

According to the official introduction of the Douyin platform, the Douyin "Health Points" system will increase or decrease the score of the account by monitoring the daily live broadcast behavior of the anchor, and classify the account accordingly. Anchors with low scores will face serious consequences, such as closing the gift function or even losing the live broadcast privileges.

The initial score of the anchor is 100 points, and those with outstanding performance can get up to 120 points. Violations will result in deductions, and the extent of the deduction depends on the degree of violation, the anchor's level and influence. For example, anchors with a high number of fans or viewers in their live broadcast rooms will be deducted an additional 1-5 points when they violate the rules. This grading system means that the anchor's daily behavior will directly affect the income and survival space of his account.

Specifically, once the anchor's "health score" is below a certain threshold, they will face strict restrictions. For example, anchors with a score below 70 will have fewer recommendations and will be limited in the number of PKs; those with a score below 40 will be prohibited from using the PK function; and if the score is below 20, the gift income function will be lost. In the worst case, when the score drops to 0, the anchor will permanently lose the live broadcast privileges.

3. Supervision has been repeatedly strengthened, but there are always loopholes?

It is worth mentioning that the "health score" is dynamic. After deductions and penalties, anchors can also get extra points by completing online learning or continuing to live broadcast in compliance. According to regulations, anchors can add 5 points if they live broadcast for more than 2 hours a day for 5 days without any violations. For low-scoring anchors who make mistakes repeatedly, if they want to start from 10 points and rise to 20 points to get rid of the dilemma of "no gifts", they need to live broadcast for more than 10 days without violations, and no less than 2 hours a day. If you want to return to the normal score, you need to live broadcast in compliance for 50 days. This is also considered by many users to be "loopholes."

On Zhihu, under the question, "What do you think of the phenomenon that anchors can only "live broadcast for free" due to insufficient health points? Is this system good or bad for the development of the live broadcast industry?", one netizen commented, "It makes no sense. Points can be added back if they can be deducted. Deducting points when a certain level of profit is reached is just a decoration. Douyu always talks about deducting points for charity, but our review supervisor receives emails every day guaranteeing additional points, and some anchors directly notify the internal staff that you are not allowed to deduct points."

At the same time, many people questioned the original intention of the platform, believing that this was because "the platform did not want to pay money, so it deducted some health points." After all, health points are closely linked to the income of the anchor. Zinc Scale noticed that on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, there have been notes such as "Guide to Reclaiming Health Points" and "Don't Worry If Points Are Deducted During the Live Broadcast." However, overall, most users support this, and many small and medium-sized anchors also think this is a good sign. "Many live broadcast rooms that maliciously hype, deliberately show off their wealth, and perform vulgar performances have low thresholds but large traffic, so they were able to make profits more easily than small anchors who honestly did live broadcasts."

Grey had tried live streaming on multiple platforms before, but eventually closed the live streaming rooms due to poor traffic. "The track is too chaotic, which is actually not very friendly to small anchors. But if the track can be regulated, valuable and rule-abiding live streaming rooms may be seen by more people."

Image source: Zhihu

In fact, this is not the first time that Douyin has stepped up supervision of live streaming. According to public information, Douyin's "Health Points" system began trial operation in September 2023, and the deduction rules are not much different from the officially implemented "Health Points" system.

Earlier, in April 2022, Douyin Live launched a health point management system, but the health point system at that time was mainly aimed at guild organizations. Regarding the public health point value range, the platform’s punishment measures are as follows: If the guild health score is ≤ 80 points, the platform will warn the guild and call in for rectification; if the guild health score is ≤ 70 points, the platform will suspend the guild’s settlement authority for one month and make a public announcement; if the guild health score is ≤ 60 points, the platform will deduct 100% of the guild’s income for that month and make a public announcement; if the guild health score is ≤ 50 points, the platform will clear the guild and make a public announcement.

4. From "appearance" to "value", the industry seeks change

“With such strict requirements on TikTok, will anchors leave for other platforms?” Similar voices have been heard on many social media platforms. In fact, the management of live broadcasting may become the norm on more platforms.
In fact, Kuaishou has also standardized live broadcast management many times before. As early as 2022, Kuaishou issued the "Announcement on Further Standardizing the Operation and Management Behavior of Live Broadcast Institutions". Starting from June 7, 2022, Kuaishou Live will cancel the "PK Penalty" function, advocate rational communication, and the number of "connected PK" in a single account live broadcast room from 20:00 to 22:00 every day shall not exceed 2 times. Kuaishou Live will further strengthen the management of interactive links, strictly rectify the vulgarity of the connected PK link, and strictly rectify the use of PK for malicious marketing.
It can be said that the implementation of Douyin’s health point system means that a new round of supervision is about to begin, and it also means that the live streaming industry has once again come to the "crossroads" of change.

For a long time, both live show and e-commerce live show have faced a mixed bag of good and bad. According to China Economic Net, the main profit model of live show is user rewards. According to the survey, the proportion of users who paid to reward when watching live broadcasts is 21.4%. In order to induce rewards, malicious hype, deliberate display of wealth, vulgar performances and other chaos frequently appear in the live broadcast room. There are many cases of fake volume and watered data.

The "e-commerce live broadcast" has also been widely criticized for its "false orders" and "vulgar sales" and other consumer-inducing routines. According to data released by the China Consumers Association, among the more than 600,000 complaints received in the first half of 2023, the live broadcast industry has become the hardest hit area, and the complaints include "low-price traffic diversion", "jewelry scams", "fictitious exaggeration of the original price of goods" and other behaviors.

Amid the frequent chaos, the state and local governments have successively issued a series of policies and regulations to regulate the development of the online live broadcast industry. As early as 2022, the State Administration of Radio and Television and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a notice on the "Code of Conduct for Online Anchors", which mentioned "establishing and improving internal system norms for the entry, training, daily management, business scoring files and "red and yellow card" management of online anchors. Positive incentives should be given to online anchors who are positive and model compliance with the code of conduct; warnings and constraints should be strengthened for online anchors who violate the rules; for online anchors with serious problems, who have repeatedly encountered problems and have refused to change after repeated warnings, their accounts should be banned, and the relevant online anchors should be included in the "blacklist" or "warning list", and they are not allowed to start broadcasting again by changing accounts or changing platforms. "What followed was the response of the platform.

From policies and regulations to platform rules, the "tightening curse" is getting tighter and tighter, and anchors and MCN agencies will inevitably usher in new changes. After the bubble dissipates, who will have the last laugh?

Author: Li Xuanqi Editor: Meng Huiyuan

WeChat public account: Zinc Scale (ID: znkedu)