Video shows Chinese double-amputee public speaker, not co-founder of TikTok

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 9, 2024 at 09:40
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

A video compilation shared in multiple social media posts in India shows the Chinese motivational speaker Chen Zhou, contrary to the posts' claim the double amputee is the founder and chairman of TikTok. The short-video platform's parent company ByteDance was co-founded by entrepreneurs Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo in March 2021; Zhang was replaced by Liang as the company's chairman in November 2021. Neither man is an amputee.

"Founder & Chairman of Tik-Tok. Nothing is Impossible, it's I Am Possible," reads the caption of a Facebook video shared here on January 30, 2024.

The accompanying video appears to show clips from two events, with overlaid text that reads, "Admirable".

The first clip shows a person who is a double-amputee riding a mobility scooter through what appears to be a sports ground filled with students. He then climbs up a flight of stairs and gives a speech.

In the second clip, the same person enters a room with the help of two wooden blocks as those inside give him an ovation.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on February 6, 2024

The video was shared with similar claims elsewhere on Facebook here and here, as well as on social media platform X here.

But the person in the video is not a founder or chairman of TikTok.

Public speaker

A watermark for a TikTok account with the handle "trendtrackus" can be seen throughout the video.

A subsequent search of the TikTok account found the video was posted here on January 22, 2024 (archived link).

The TikTok post's caption does not identify the person in the video and only includes hashtags for "viral video", "hot trend", "xu huong" and "new trend".

One of the comments on the post, however, reads: "He is a singer, his name is Chen Zhou."

A keyword search on Google led to several stories about Chen in Chinese media here and here and a feature here in an US-based magazine with a focus on issues related to disability (archived links here, here and here).

According to an article in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper, Chen lost both his legs after he was seriously injured jumping from a moving train at the age of 13 (archived link).

He made a life for himself and has now given hundreds of speeches using his experiences to inspire others.

Further searches on Douyin found several more videos on an account called "Chen Zhou chasing dreams" that posts clips from his speaking engagements.

The two clips combined in the false post were also posted by the account with overlaid simplified Chinese text that says they were taken from speeches he gave in Liaocheng, a city in China's Shandong province, and in Foshan, a city in Guangdong province.

Below are screenshot comparisons of the clips from the false post (left) and the same clips uploaded separately to Douyin (right):

Screenshot comparisons of the clips from the false post (left) and the same clips uploaded separately to Douyin (right)

TikTok founders and chairmen

TikTok's parent company is ByteDance, a Chinese company co-founded by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo in March 2012.

Zhang stepped down as ByteDance's chairman in 2021, handing the reins to Liang.

Neither Zhang nor Liang are a double-amputee.

A video uploaded to ByteDance's official YouTube channel here on July 30, 2020 shows Zhang and Liang walking around the four-bedroom flat where they started the company (archived link).

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail