TikTok in Japan pays influencers without informing viewers to spread videos

TOKYO: The Japan operator of the popular Chinese video-sharing app TikTok said on Monday it has paid social media influencers to spread certain videos on Twitter without informing viewers about the payments.

The Japan office of ByteDance is believed to have spread TikTok videos handpicked by the company through the influencers to raise recognition levels of the app in a strategy that could be considered as stealth marketing. It is believed viewers could have mistaken those videos as ordinary posts by general social media users.

The company said the practice, which had been in place until last December, of paying influencers to upload specific videos was not aimed at increasing the…