Chinese word processor WPS accused of censorship after author says she was locked out of 1.3 million-character document

The software from Kingsoft Corp has been mired in controversy since an author said she was locked out of her own document stored on the cloud platform

The operator of the office suite, similar to Microsoft 365, said it does not censor files, but anger online has persisted amid accusations form other users

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Published: 2:30pm, 14 Jul 2022

Chinese software developer Kingsoft Corp is facing a crisis of trust after being accused of locking a novelist out of her own work written in the word processing software WPS over sensitive content, a practice the company denies.

After trending on social media, the issue has caught the attention of state media and other users have come forward with their own experiences about being locked out of their files.

At the heart of the issue is the WPS cloud platform, which like Microsoft 365 allows users to work with files stored on company servers or locally through desktop programs. The writer, who goes by the pseudonym Mitu, claimed she was unable to access her unpublished 1.3 million-character document either from the cloud or the desktop WPS client, which told her “the file may contain sensitive content and access has been disabled”. It could still be opened with other tools, including Microsoft Word and Tencent Docs.

WPS responded to the controversy in a post on the microblogging platform Weibo on Wednesday saying it “is obliged to review all content distributed through its platform” in accordance with the Cybersecurity Law and the Internet Information Service Management Measures, among other laws. The company also emphasised that it “never censors, locks or deletes users’ local files”.

The response so far has not tempered criticism, which has grown since Mitu first shared the incident in late June through posts on Lkong, an online literature forum, and the popular lifestyle social platform Xiaohongshu. The incident began trending on Weibo this week after an influencer reposted her words there on Monday. Mitu made her own post there the following day.

In her posts, Mitu said she eventually reported the problem to WPS, which apologised and restored access within two days. The file was not problematic, Mitu said the company told her.

Despite this, the incident has generated heated discussions online about privacy. In its statement, WPS sought to assuage these concerns.

“We take strict encryption and desensitisation measures to protect the security of user information when we review the content,” the company said.