Big Tech’s ‘walled gardens’ start to crack as Tencent vows to follow Beijing’s order to unblock links to rivals
- The crackdown on link-blocking is part of a six-month internet clean-up campaign by MIIT which began in July
- China’s internet industry has historically been characterised by ‘walled gardens’, where major companies built barriers around their ecosystems
Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings said it will follow a regulatory order to unblock online links after China’s industry ministry ordered internet companies to open up their platforms to each other, signalling the demise of Big Tech’s “walled gardens”.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has been giving guidance to internet companies as they conduct self-rectification measures to unblock external website links, and will continue to push the companies to eventually solve the problem through different steps and phases, Zhao Zhiguo, MIIT spokesman and director general of the ministry’s Information and Communications Management Bureau, said at a press conference on Monday.
“We support MIIT’s guidance and will make the necessary changes in phases,” Tencent, which operates the multipurpose super app WeChat and has long been the target of criticism for blocking links to rivals, said in a statement on Monday.
The crackdown on link-blocking is part of a six-month internet clean-up campaign by MIIT which began in July, under which Beijing has targeted industry problems including disturbances of market order, infringements of user rights, threats to data security and unauthorised internet connections. Topping the list was the industry practice of blocking and restricting access to the websites of competitors without a legitimate reason.
“Blocking website links is one of the priority issues of our campaign, and ensuring normal access to legitimate websites is a basic requirement for the development of the internet,” Zhao said on Monday, adding that the ministry has received numerous complaints on the issue.