WeChat Censorship Provokes Doubts On Integrity From Disgruntled Editor

A Chinese editor is angry over an arbitrary suspension of his publication–Eastday.com’s  official WeChat account, and he’s making sure Tencent hears about it.

“I am a man of the press, we deserve our dignity, and we won’t be cheaply bought. If one day all news outlets become minions of Tencent, will the “Chinese dream” even exist?”  bemoans editor in chief Xu Shipping in a public letter published on Eastday’s site, with the title “The ferocious and authoritarian empire of the penguin”.

In the letter, he accuses Tencent of lacking the media literacy of a real news organization, and despite the lack of professionalism, Tencent, or more pointedly, Pony Ma, is flattering himself by endowing WeChat with the power to censor content and shut down accounts.

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