China starts investigation against messenger service WeChat

The monopoly of large corporations also seems to increasingly affect the attitudes of policy makers. In the European Union, one investigation after the other against tech giants such as Google, Facebook or Apple is starting, in other countries things are hardly different. The Chinese government now also seems to be taking a closer look at its own compatriots. WeChat is the latest example here.

Tencent, which is developing the news app, has been hit for the second time. As early as the beginning of July, the People’s Republic was investigating the company’s business, and the latest developments saw the market value of China’s most valuable company drop by almost $ 100 billion. The reason is a necessary “technical security update” in order to continue to comply with local regulations.

Further registrations are not possible until the problem is resolved, but that seems to be a minor problem for Tencent. Initially, this stop is expected to be observed until the beginning of August, and a large part of the population is already registered with the service. The company’s value appears to have mostly shrunk as investors seem unlikely to fully trust the government’s actions.

Because the competition from Alibaba and other companies have recently been extensively examined by the Communist Party. After all, the corporations have a great influence on the opinion-forming and everyday life of the citizens, so in a (rather unlikely) extreme case there could also be a risk for local politics.

Own opinion:

In many cases, putting a stop to large influential corporations is a profitable idea, but the motivation should always be to protect the citizens. The big question here is whether the Chinese government, which in the past seldom stood up for freedom, has the interests of its own residents in mind or is afraid of its power.

Via Fast Company