Chinese tech giant Tencent announced today that it has punished more than 1,800 mini-programs since the beginning of 2019 which are suspected of having vulgar and pornographic contents, following previous efforts to clean up its WeChat mini program ecosystem.
“There are many excellent mini programs in WeChat’s ecosystem, but there are also some mini-programs which have been used in illegal activities. We take a “zero tolerance” attitude for behaviors damaging the ecosystem,” the company said on its official WeChat account.
Among the mini-programs involved in this crackdown campaign, over 100 were user-generated content (UGC) mini programs, while more than 1,700 were “pornographic vulgar mini programs” that used pornographic and vulgar contents to draw in users, according to Tencent.
The company said it has limited the sharing function and in some cases banned these illicit mini programs. It also called on users to report such mini programs in the future.
More than 700 million users now adopt WeChat’s mini-programs, and an average user employs WeChat mini programs 42.6 times monthly, according to research firm QuestMobile.
Last month, Tencent punished more than 2,000 mini-programs involved in illegal online lending since January 2018, according to the company.
