The Chinese social messaging app WeChat has been accused yet again of censoring the car app company Uber.
WeChat has admitted to blocking all of Uber's accounts on the app, as well as accounts that promote Uber, claiming that these accounts broke WeChat's terms of service by engaging in “malicious marketing activities” and collecting users' personal information.
WeChat's parent company Tencent has invested a large amount of money in Uber's main rival in China, Didi Kuaidi, making many question whether the company's decision to block Uber on its platform is really about protecting users or simply another example of the censorship that already plagues China's internet space.
This is not the first time that WeChat has been accused of censoring its rival Uber. In October it was accused of censoring positive news about Uber whilst boosting negative news about the company.
There was also a so-called technical glitch in July which meant that searching for the word “Uber” in WeChat brought up zero results.
WeChat is the most popular social messaging app in China, with more than 600 million monthly active users.Â
