eMarketer: WeChat is unlikely to become a marketing tool for international companies in China

199IT original compilation

Last week, a group of Toronto researchers reported that WeChat had blocked users outside mainland China from sending or receiving messages. It's not surprising that Tencent deleted WeChat content at the request of Chinese government censors, but the fact that Tencent implemented censorship for users outside of China may make overseas users uncomfortable.

Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary group at the University of Toronto that conducts research on information, security and human rights, found that WeChat users who registered with a mainland China phone number continued to be subject to content controls, even if they traveled to another country or changed to a foreign phone number. In contrast, censorship was less strict for WeChat accounts that were originally registered in the United States or Hong Kong.

Citizen Lab also found that WeChat does not inform users when messages are blocked, and keyword-triggered filtering is automatic and responds to current news events. In addition, the keyword list for group chats is longer than that for peer-to-peer communications.

Tencent told Reuters: "Tencent will abide by the laws and regulations of each country."

WeChat has a huge user base. In the third quarter of 2016, the number of monthly active users reached 846 million, and the vast majority of WeChat users are in China.

However, WeChat is not widely used in other countries with a large Chinese population, such as Malaysia. According to data from SimilarWeb, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the most popular communication apps in these countries. Therefore, few people in Western countries use WeChat and are not too concerned about WeChat blocking content.

International brands that use WeChat face a more complicated situation. WeChat's promise to let these brands reach a large number of Chinese consumers is also difficult to uphold. WeChat is no longer just a communication app. It has developed into a network ecosystem where users can shop online, transfer money, call a car, order travel, track health and more.

For multinational corporations, China's content filtering and censorship will bring them more costs.

199IT.com Originally compiled from: eMarketer. Please do not reprint without authorization