Escalating competition for users data acquisition between WeChat and Douyin

Earlier last week, new users on the short video platform, Douyin (or TikTok internationally), were unable to register with their existing WeChat accounts, although old users have so far not been affected when logging in using WeChat. The block was believed to be a fightback against the alleged misuse of WeChat user data by Douyin, where quite a few subscribers found their WeChat contacts in video recommendation feeds or ‘People You May Know’ – though this was strongly denied by Bytedance, the parent company of Douyin, arguing that it is impossible to access WeChat user data as a third-party application.