Abstract: Biodiversity is the artery of life on Earth. The rapid weakening of biodiversity poses a threat to human and nature, which is little known to the public. Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd. has launched the industry’s first video content guide for biodiversity conservation. Via TikTok, high-quality popular science knowledge is spread and reached to the public, which engages people in biodiversity conservation. While building video databases of biodiversity to facilitate scientific research, the company has focused on technology and product innovation, platform content governance, and content ecology optimization to combat wildlife-related crimes and illegal informaton.
Challenge
Biodiversity is the lifeblood of our planet, underpinning both present and future human well-being. According to IPBES’s 2018 report, the principal drivers of global biodiversity loss — climate change, invasive species, resource overexploitation, pollution, and urbanization — threaten economic development, food security, cultural diversity, and quality of life, and pose significant risks to global peace. Biodiversity loss deepens inequality, with vulnerable communities disproportionately affected. Leveraging the immense reach of internet platforms to turn passive audiences into active conservation participants while combating online illegal wildlife trade represents a uniquely powerful role for tech companies.
Solution
ByteDance Charity and Douyin published the video industry’s first content creation standard for biodiversity protection — the Short Video Content Guidelines for Biodiversity Conservation — providing creation advice and scientific standards to guide creators filming in the wild toward respectful human-nature interaction and accurate conservation messaging.
Content ecosystem: Leading biodiversity experts, frontline conservationists, and science communicators were invited to share high-quality natural-ecology knowledge via short videos; mainstream media, NGOs, protected-area managers, and museums partnered on live-streamed programs, calling on all stakeholders to create richer content guided by the standard; and millions of users were invited to document nature through their lenses, transforming from viewers into participants.
Technology innovation: In 2021, Douyin launched a flora-and-fauna identification feature — users can shoot or upload any nature short video, attach the identification sticker, and instantly learn the species and related science content. Building on this user-generated corpus, ByteDance is collaborating with research institutions to build a scientifically valuable biodiversity video database, opening new pathways for research and policy-making.
Platform governance: On Earth Day (April 22), ByteDance joined the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, working with coalition members to clean up illegal content, curb wildlife crime, and continuously leverage technology, content governance, and ecosystem optimization to suppress illegal content and elevate public awareness.
Campaigns: April 22, 2021 saw the launch of the My Pact with the Earth short-video challenge; May 22 brought the Amazing Animals Are Here campaign; June 5, in partnership with UNEP, the short film Nature’s Pulse was released alongside the I’m a Nature Rep topic campaign. By August 2021, these campaigns had generated 2.75 billion views, with the #Wildlife topic surpassing 5.6 billion views, #ProtectAnimals 4.6 billion, and #YangtzeEcologicalProtection over 1.1 billion — growing by nearly 100 million per day.
Impact & Value
Public education & participation: ByteDance has leveraged its product and technology strengths and content ecosystem to raise public awareness and engagement on biodiversity — from combating illegal trade to enriching conservation content to the species ID feature, each measure has advanced and amplified the conservation message at scale. The 5.6 billion and 4.6 billion views on wildlife and animal protection hashtags underscore the public’s strong appetite and engagement with ecological content.
Industry benchmark: The Short Video Content Guidelines for Biodiversity Conservation is a pioneering creation standard for the video industry; the species identification feature organically lowers participation barriers by merging professional science communication with mass engagement.
International cooperation: Joining the global coalition drew positive feedback from Ma Chenyue, Senior Program Officer at IFAW: “Douyin’s membership strengthens the coalition’s capacity to combat wildlife trafficking and enhances our collective ability to address online illegal wildlife trade.”
Research support: The steadily growing biodiversity video database will provide researchers with new data sources and methodologies, compensating for the time- and labor-intensive nature of traditional field data collection.
Platform governance: Through technology innovation and content ecosystem optimization, ByteDance continues to suppress wildlife crime and illegal content, demonstrating the proactive and effective CSR engagement possible for internet platforms.