Africa-based Chinese influencers who post racist videos about Africans on apps like Douyin and Kuaishou made fortunes from China's livestream shopping industry
Rest of WorldViola Zhou
Context & Ripple Effects
China's livestream industry has been scaling for years: from the 2016 "showroom" era where top streamers earned six figures monthly, to content farms like "Factory TikTok", where workers double as sellers, to an estimated $500B in goods sold on apps like Douyin in 2022 — an 8x jump since 2019, already drawing regulatory scrutiny (livestream shopping's $500B year).
This Rest of World reporting exposes the incentive structure underneath that growth: Africa-based Chinese influencers found that racist videos about Africans drive the attention that converts into sales on Douyin and Kuaishou. It matters because it shows how far the content-farm playbook stretches when monetization is frictionless and moderation lags.
First-order effects
The named influencers directly profit from racist content as a customer-acquisition funnel on Douyin and Kuaishou, meaning the platforms' recommendation and gifting systems are currently paying for dehumanizing material.
Second-order effects
Douyin and Kuaishou face moderation and advertiser-reputation pressure precisely as regulators are already scrutinizing the livestream sector over its $500B scale — every scandal raises the cost of the laissez-faire content model.
Third-order effects
If shock-content economics keep outpacing enforcement, expect the livestream industry's structural response to be heavier platform-side censorship and tighter state rules, shaping what cross-border influencer commerce can look like as Chinese apps push overseas.
The trend: Livestream commerce is maturing from an anything-goes attention economy into one where moderation failures like racist viral content force platforms and regulators to decide how much growth they will trade for control.
Rose is a popular tik tok/Douyin food content creator in China. She's originally from Uganda, but now lives in a Chinese village w her husband and their son, and they create cooking videos together. Here she is making one of my favorite dishes 😋 https://twitter.com/...
“Chinese people love watching how other places are not as good as China. If you film some advanced stuff here, people might not like watching. They would rather see lives that are worse than their own.” https://restofworld.org/...
The Chinese colonialist project in Africa is pretty much the same as every other colonialist project in Africa. The only difference is their racist narrative is told on soclal media rather than in newspapers. https://restofworld.org/...
Exclusive Chinese short-video apps are quietly cracking down on influencers in Africa, who have built fortunes producing racist, misogynist content, after BBC investigation Racism for Sale triggered outcry across Africa https://restofworld.org/... via @restofworld
.@violazhouyi analyzed two dozen+ accounts in Guinea, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, and Kenya - & other countries in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia - found Chinese vloggers with millions of followers use racism to sell snacks and products to viewers For @restofworld https…
Popular videos show Chinese influencers engaged in racist and misogynist displays of power over people in Africa fuel a multimillion-dollar business 1/3 https://restofworld.org/...
From @violazhouyi: “In dozens of videos filmed and uploaded by these influencers, Black people, including children, are shown to embrace Chinese language and culture. Black women are degraded as sexual objects, ... https://restofworld.org/...
This was sooo gross to read. There's a lot of straight up misogynist, racist, violent or worse content on these Chinese video platforms. Recently it took a lot of ppl reporting to get some influencer making $ advocating domestic violence (which is a crime!) banned. https://twitte…