Tencent

About

Tencent is a Chinese technology conglomerate known for its investment in various businesses related to online games, including League of Legends, Fornite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Additionally, the firm controls businesses in industries related to various other internet services, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

History

On November 11th, 1998, Tencent was founded in China by Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Chen Yidan and Zeng Liqing. In 2004, Tencent expanding its services to include online gaming and began licensing games several years later. In February 2011, Tencent purchased majority equity in the League of Legends developer Riot Games and a minority in Epic Games several years later. In 2015, Tencent's online bank WeBank was created. In April 2017, the company announced WeGame as its first gaming platform. In November that year, Tencent gained the rights to run a Chinese version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. On December 7th, 2017, the CNBC International YouTube channel uploaded an explainer video about Tencent (shown below).

Controversies

Social Credit System

On August 9th, 2017, reports began circulating that Tencent was testing a social credit system on their Chinese chat application QQ.^[2]

Reddit Investment

On February 5th, 2019, TechCrunch reported that Reddit was aiming to raise upwards of $150 million in a Series D fundraising round led by Tencent with a pre-money valuation of $2.7 billion. On February 8th, Redditor FreeSpeechWarrior submitted a post about Tencent's investment in Reddit along with the "Tank Man" photograph from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests to /r/pics^[1] (shown below). Within four days, the post gathered upwards of 200,000 points (86% upvoted) and 6,400 comments. That day, Redditor hockeyjmac posted a graphic photograph of dead demonstrators at the Tiananmen Square protests to /r/pics.^[3]

Meanwhile, posts featuring the character Winnie the Pooh began reaching the front page of various subreddits, mocking China's censorship of the character due to jokes about Chinese president Xi Jinping (shown below).^[4]

On February 11th, an article titled "What's going on with China & Big Tech?" was published on Medium,^[5] which discussed Chinese investment in Reddit and Discord in the context of censorship on the platforms.

Search Interest

External References