On January 8, several California users filed a class action lawsuit against WeChat‘s parent company, Tencent, which was formally filed that day in the California Superior Court in Santa Clara County. The complaint alleges 11 counts, including that WeChat “violates California’s constitutional rights to privacy and free speech. The class action lawsuit, initiated and organized by human rights group Citizen Power, opens a judicial battle against WeChat’s widespread infringement in the United States, according to some analysts.
“The class action lawsuit against Tencent, initiated and organized by Citizen Power. (Web screenshot)
“According to a statement from Citizen Power, the organization prepared for the lawsuit for nearly a year, interviewing hundreds of WeChat users in the U.S. “A 15-member team, at its discretion, selected the first six California WeChat users to join Citizen Power as plaintiffs, alleging that WeChat’s censorship, surveillance practices and policies violate California law in numerous ways. policies that violate numerous aspects of California law.”
The statement noted that WeChat’s unlawful conduct and related policies, as the leading social media and payment application in the Chinese-speaking world, have resulted in significant economic, emotional and psychological harm to users and “asks the court to declare (WeChat’s) challenged practices and policies unlawful under California law, issue an injunction against its conduct, and award damages to defendants for the harm they have caused. “
The defendants in the case are Tencent USA, LLC and Tencent International Services, Inc.
Lead counsel Times Wang (photo courtesy of myself)
Times Wang, the lead attorney in the case, told the Voice of America that there are several reasons why Tencent (WeChat) was brought to court in California: “First, California has a moral advantage, as there are many Chinese WeChat users in California; second, California law has a high degree of protection for privacy and free speech rights; and finally, Tencent’s U.S. headquarters is in Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, California. Finally, Tencent’s U.S. headquarters is in Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, California. These factors make it logical for us to initiate litigation in California courts.”
Mr. Wang runs North River Law PLLC in Washington, D.C., where his father is a prominent overseas pro-democracy activist.
“Dr. Yang Jianli, founder of Citizen Power, told VOA that President Trump had ordered the banning of WeChat in the U.S., but such an executive order has not yet been recognized by U.S. courts because of legal issues related to First Amendment freedom of speech.
“Dr. Yang Jianli, founder of Citizen Power. (Photo provided by me)
We are now using legal action to inform all parties that WeChat is doing evil and we are demanding that it be punished,” Yang said. This way, WeChat users in the U.S. can still use it to contact their friends and family without suffering damages. At the same time, our plaintiffs can still claim damages from WeChat. Therefore, I think this is the best way.”
Yang said the road to litigation may not only punish WeChat and allow the first plaintiffs to receive compensation, but may also lead to more lawsuits against it; that is, using the rules of a democratic system to force it to change its behavior and stop it from continuing to use Western freedoms to undermine democracy and liberty.
The complaint alleges that WeChat is important to California’s Chinese-speaking community, which uses it to connect with friends and family and to conduct business in the Chinese-speaking community; that it is the equivalent of Facebook, Paypal, WhatsApp, and Instagram all rolled into one platform for business, family, and personal communications; and that the case arises from Tencent’s efforts to profitably support Chinese Communist Party regulation and to monitor WeChat users in California, including by turning over their private data and communications records to the government of the People’s Republic of China, causing a range of damages to users.
The six individual plaintiffs in the complaint appear anonymously as “Plaintiffs 1-6. (Web screenshot)
Bloomberg News said WeChat has become the most popular social media App among Chinese-speaking people, in part because China has blocked other apps such as Facebook and Twitter.
In addition to Citizen Power, the six individual plaintiffs, all of whom were joined anonymously, are California residents, three of whom are U.S. citizens and three of whom are citizens of the People’s Republic of China.
Two of the defendants named in the complaint, Tencent USA, LLC, are registered in the State of Delaware and headquartered at 2747 Pike Avenue in Palo Alto, California. The second defendant, Tencent International Services Limited, is registered in Singapore and located in Singapore’s International Plaza, and “is the contractor responsible for WeChat users in the State of California.
Tencent USA’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California. (Photo from the web)
The suit states, “WeChat’s service rules do not explicitly state that content critical of the party-state is prohibited. And the fact that such content is banned is not because, without banning such messages, WeChat is technically unable to function properly.”
The anonymous plaintiff number one in the complaint describes repeatedly having his WeChat account blocked, with the alumni group of which he is the group leader being the focus of attention. Most of the group’s friends are in China, including some classmates who work at the grassroots level of government. After being censored for politically sensitive information, he would continually rebuild the group.
Plaintiff No. 1 said that his classmates who work in government no longer continue to join because Tencent WeChat keeps targeting the group. He went to China a short time ago to meet with these students and encouraged them to join the group again. These classmates declined, saying they were afraid of being implicated because Plaintiff No. 1 was being targeted by the party-state and monitored by Tencent.
In addition, Plaintiff No. 1 said that one of his college classmates told him about several incidents that a conversation in this group had stirred up. This classmate told him that he had been called by Communist Party public security officers to discuss the activities of this WeChat group. The public security officers questioned the overseas members of the group, let’s say the No. 1 plaintiff, and warned the classmate not to criticize the party-state. In addition, the public security officers disclosed that they had private information about group members and group leaders, including those in foreign countries. The classmate advised Plaintiff No. 1 to be careful because the Party State was monitoring him.
In an article entitled “Communist censorship invades U.S. through WeChat,” the Washington Post said that WeChat users in North America say the app has prevented them from sharing content that does not please Communist authorities, and as a result, some support Trump’s ban on WeChat use.
WeChat is a prison, a concentration camp,” Zhou Fenglock, president of the nonprofit Humane China, told The Washington Post. For the United States, it is a Trojan horse that affects all levels of society. …… Therefore, WeChat must be banned.”
The article said many of those interviewed supported the White House ban; others did not support the ban but wanted the U.S. to pressure Tencent, the owner of WeChat, to stop content censorship.
The article also said that there are 2.3 million active WeChat users in the United States each week.
Wang Yuehui is a lawyer and political writer who lives in Orange County, California, and travels frequently between the U.S. and China for business. He told Voice of America that one of his WeChat accounts was fully blocked and one was half blocked: “The half blocked one means the domestic number can’t see you; the fully blocked one has all the content since he started using WeChat around 2012, and WeChat hasn’t given any reason for blocking it.”
Wang Yuehui said, “I don’t speak emotionally, I speak reasonably and set out the facts, but I set out something that is not so timely and ‘politically correct’ (for the Chinese government); on the other hand, because I was blocked last year when I was in the United States, probably because I often copy and paste the content from Twitter to WeChat and then forward it. I think this is the main reason why I often copy and paste the content from Twitter to WeChat and then forward it out. In fact, my speech can’t catch anything, and there is nothing that I turn.”
Wang Yuehui reflected that he may have angered the authorities by frequently introducing Twitter, a channel banned by the CCP, into the WeChat group.
In addition, Wang began writing a large number of commentaries early last year, and those related to politics were “eaten by river crabs” immediately after they were sent out. Even if it’s about U.S. politics or the U.S. election, he said, the same thing happens, even the U.S. Constitution can’t be talked about, and not a word about China will be “eaten” now.
Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information, wrote an article for the Journal of Democracy titled “The Road to Digital Freedomlessness: President Xi Jinping‘s Surveillance State,” saying, “In Xi Jinping’s 2012 In China’s ‘new era’ since Xi Jinping came to power, the government has greatly tightened its control over its already censored cyberspace, and spreading ‘rumors’ online is punishable by jail time. …… Those who express unorthodox views online Those who express unorthodox views online can become the target of targeted personal attacks by state-run media. Surveillance and intimidation are coupled with blatant coercion, including police visits and arrests. ……”
The article notes that instead of limiting its defense of opposition activities, the Chinese government is using digital technology to monitor and control society, particularly through the use of “big data,” artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.
WeChat users in California want to file a complaint in the form of a class action lawsuit seeking a court order to allow them to use the app without politically motivated censorship and surveillance.
“The individual plaintiffs used their real names when the WeChat Users Coalition sued against President Trump’s WeChat ban in 2020. (Web screenshot)
Observers have noted that the six individual plaintiffs in this lawsuit against Tencent’s WeChat are anonymous “because they are afraid of the Chinese government,” while several individual plaintiffs in last year’s U.S. WeChat Users Coalition lawsuit against President Trump’s WeChat ban appeared under their real names “because they do not fear persecution by the U.S. government.
Wang Daishi, the lead attorney for the WeChat class action, told the Voice of America that they, as plaintiffs, are now waiting for Tencent to respond to the lawsuit and will then decide on their next strategy.
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