The Zhitong Finance App learned that Qin Shuo, founder of Qin Shuo's Circle of Friends, posted a circle of friends, saying, “I have commissioned a lawyer to file a lawsuit with the People's Court in response to recent remarks infringing on the right to reputation made by 'Douyin Group Li Liang', to take measures to protect his legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law and investigate the legal liability of the infringer.” According to information, the case has been entrusted to Guohao Law Firm to handle it. The relevant responsible lawyer confirmed to reporters that the case has been submitted to the Shanghai court.
On November 2, in response to the news that “Qin Shuo officially sued Li Liang of Douyin Group”, Douyin Vice President Li Liang responded that he would respond positively to the lawsuit.
Earlier, Qin Shuo's circle of friends published an article entitled “Terrible” Red Fruits and Byte Time on the Chinese Internet. The statement “Byte Time on the Chinese Internet” attracted widespread discussion. QuestMobile data from Nomura Securities's “China Internet and New Media Monthly App Tracking Report” was quoted as saying that in July 2026, Douyin surpassed WeChat for the first time among the top 50 mobile Internet usage time apps in China, accounting for 19.4% of the total usage time, and WeChat was 18.8%; Byte apps reached 40.9%, and Tencent's 29.1%.
Li Liang, vice president of Douyin Group, published an article denying that the Hongguo skit has an annual revenue of 40 billion dollars and outraged the claim that “the byte-time of the Chinese Internet” is. Li Liang said that false information about the Hongguo skit continues to circulate. This information has even affected some authoritative experts and scholars. A scholar he respects actually proposed “the byte-time of the Chinese Internet.” This characterization is extremely unscrupulous; it is pure nonsense.
The official account of the Hongguo skit also issued a statement, saying that claims such as “the annual revenue of Hongguo skits is approaching 40 billion yuan” are circulating on the Internet, and that “after verification, the above revenue data is untrue,” and there is no factual basis for estimates and extended interpretations based on this.
On October 29, Li Liang wrote another article: “In recent years, many experts have switched to self-media. Their fees are several times or even ten times higher than ordinary self-media. I think it is reasonable as long as the market accepts it, but it is reasonable to follow the basic code of ethics.” He mentioned that Qin Shuo attended a company's creators' carnival on the 23rd, released a “deep appreciation” for the company's movie and TV series in his circle of friends on the 24th, and wrote the so-called “byte time” based on August data from Japan's Nomura on the 26th. “We pointed out that this characterization is untrue and very unstrict, but Mr. Qin Shuo still insisted that the title must be used.”