(Yicai Global) Feb. 2 -- Douyin’s decision to stop financial and health care influencers from adding links in their accounts to internet giant Tencent Holdings’ social media platforms WeChat and QQ has to do with safeguarding the rights of the short video app’s users and has nothing to do with banning Tencent, TikTok’s Chinese version said yesterday.

Yesterday a rumor started to circulate on social media that, “Douyin has stopped allowing users to leave any contact information on their account homepage.” This then led to the rumor that “Douyin is banning Tencent.”

Only finance and healthcare content creators are affected, said Douyin, whose operator is Beijing-based ByteDance Technology. It seems like ghostwriters were paid to post false information on microblogging site Weibo and question-and-answer platform Zhihu, it added.

Financial videos are some of the most watched content on Douyin. However, diverting viewers to their WeChat, QQ and other platforms can lead to false promotion, the sale of unlicensed products and other risky behaviors, it said.

Certain Douyin content creators were told to check if their accounts contained any links that could divert users to other platforms and if so, to alter or delete them before yesterday, otherwise Douyin will reset their accounts, TechWeb reported earlier.

Editor: Kim Taylor