CHANGCHUN, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Siping, a northeastern Chinese city with a population of 3 million, has more than 13 million followers on its public security bureau account on Douyin, China's leading short video platform.
The "Sipingjingshi" account posts funny one-minute skit and crosstalk videos nearly every week to provide legal knowledge, which have attracted more than 78 million likes across 114 videos.
In the videos, police officers create fictional scenes based on real cases covering crimes ranging from drunk driving to pyramid schemes. They use humor to teach viewers about crime, warning people to be cautious and showing them how to protect themselves.
Since their first video went viral last July, updates have been a sweet trouble for policeman Dong Zheng, one of the main video producers.
"After every post, numerous people ask us for new episodes, forcing us to speed up production work," Dong said.
However, they had a rough start.
"At first, we did videos in traditional forms of police training and lectures on case analysis, only to find that viewers were not interested at all," he said.
"For a long time, we got merely dozens of followers, almost all were colleagues in the bureau."
To make a change, Dong formed a team including two professionals for shooting and sound and two villains acted by a local comedian and a host from a local broadcasting station. Dong plays himself, a policeman powerfully fighting.
"All the plots are adapted from real cases. We want the audience to learn with laughs about legal stuff," Dong said. "Such a way proves more effective than the traditional boring and cramming method to introduce our work and disseminate knowledge."
"Most work are done in our spare time. Scripts are from our daily talks and it only takes about two hours to make a video."
China's short video market has seen explosive growth in recent years, with Douyin one of the most popular platforms.
Launched in September 2016, Douyin allows users to create short videos -- usually lasting between 15 seconds to a few minutes -- packed with music and special effects. Initially featuring music and dance, Douyin has expanded to more diverse content, such as food, culture and travel.
Last July, it said it had 500 million monthly active users worldwide and had spread to more than 150 countries and regions.
Chinese government sectors, like the Siping public security bureau, are also using popular social media platforms to form a closer relationship with the public.
According to the 2018 Douyin big data report, there were 5,724 accounts concerning government affairs by the end of last year, which had issued more than 250,000 short videos receiving 4.3 billion likes, with "Sipingjingshi" topping the list in terms of fans.
"We will continue to try new forms in the future, such as film and online series, to disseminate legal knowledge in an effective way," said Sun Xuejun, a senior official with the Siping public security bureau.
