The wildly popular Chinese short-video apps Douyin and Tik Tok look almost the same, with identical interfaces, video editing tools and logos. 

But there is a key difference: Douyin can only be downloaded from a Chinese app store by someone on the mainland, while Tik Tok is accessible only to users outside of the country. 

Bytedance, the Chinese internet company behind both fast-growing platforms, has created two separate apps for users at home and abroad rather than attempt to manage content flowing in and out of China’s “ great firewall” — providing a potential road map for how mainland tech companies can go global without falling foul of Beijing’s content restrictions.