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ByteDance accuses Tencent of blocking its work-from-home tool Feishu on WeChat

  • ByteDance says Tencent is not approving a WeChat mini program for its cloud office software Feishu, known as Lark overseas
  • Blocking links and user access between apps is common practice in China’s competitive tech industry

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ByteDance says WeChat is not approving a mini program for its Feishu cloud documents service, making it the latest dispute between the two companies regarding blocking on Tencent’s popular social media app. Photo: AFP
Tracy QuandIris Deng

TikTok owner ByteDance has accused Tencent Holdings of blocking its cloud office suite Feishu on WeChat as China’s tech giants fight for dominance in the enterprise collaboration market and the central government increases scrutiny of monopolistic practices in the tech sector.

Xie Xin, ByteDance’s vice-president overseeing Feishu, said the productivity app’s WeChat mini program for cloud documents has been stuck in review limbo, without any feedback or response from the social media platform. Feishu is the Chinese version of ByteDance’s productivity tool Lark, an app that basically combines similar features to Slack and Google Docs.

“The review of the WeChat open platform has always been an unsolved mystery. Even if the review status becomes ‘passed’, WeChat can block the product for no reason,” Xie said in a post on Jinri Toutiao, the company’s popular news platform, on Thursday. “Our other two WeChat mini programs, ‘Feishu Conference’ and ‘Feishu’, have suffered such treatment as well.”

“We respect Tencent’s absolute market position and influence in the social media field, but … Tencent relies on its monopoly position to block Feishu and harm the enterprise and user experience. We do not agree [with this practice],” he added.

WeChat and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a renewed focus on enterprise collaboration software, ByteDance launched a dedicated app for Feishu cloud documents last November. Picture: Screenshot/Feishu
In a renewed focus on enterprise collaboration software, ByteDance launched a dedicated app for Feishu cloud documents last November. Picture: Screenshot/Feishu
This latest spat between the two tech giants comes on the heels of a dispute with another tech giant, Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest smartphone brand. Huawei removed Tencent’s games from its app store last week in a disagreement over revenue sharing, but the dispute was later resolved.
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