The Chinese tech giant Tencent is currently facing a lawsuit over WeChat’s youth mode. The civil public lawsuit by some prosecutors in Beijing claims that the youth mode on the app is actually violating rules that protect minors. This was reported by Reuters. The youth mode restricts access to some functions like mobile payments and does not allow some games.
The accurate reason of how the app violates the law has not been specified but it came after a state-owned Chinese newspaper referred to online games as “opium for the mind”. The report was later edited but Tencent had lost its share values by 10% by then. The company has not provided any official comments regarding the matter. It had last week placed new restrictions on its Honor of Kings game, which was mentioned in the Chinese newspaper, for users below the age of 18, placing a limit on how long a player can access it daily.
China has been recently strict on its large tech companies. It was not long ago that Alibaba was asked to pay a fine of $2.8 billion on claims that the company stifled competition. Similar actions were taken against QQ and Didi Chuxing’s app claiming that it violated privacy rules. Alibaba has also recently suspended some of its staff on the grounds that they sexually assaulted a female employee. Alibaba spokesperson clarified in a mail that “We have suspended relevant parties suspected of violating our policies and values, and we have established a special internal task force to investigate the issue and support the ongoing police investigation. We will provide further updates as we continue to work with law enforcement on the investigation.”
