WeChat, Others Targeted in Crackdown as Users Complain of Social Media Fatigue

Popular social messaging service WeChat is among the services being targeted in a month-long government crackdown on rumors, fraud, porn, violence and "activities of infiltration from foreign powers," according to headlines this morning in the Global Times.

WeChat has 800 million users after launching a mere two years ago and is currently the social networking application du jour for individuals, celebrities and increasingly, brands. The service is almost entirely cell-phone based.

Being name-dropped in a crackdown is not exactly great news for WeChat ... Its predecessor in the social media game was Weibo, the darling of the tweeting masses prior to WeChat's ascent. A crackdown launched in 2013 targeting Weibo knocked it for a loop that it has yet to recover from. The platform has been losing its cool ever since (as well as a significant amount of moola – the publicly-traded Weibo, spun off from Sina.com and listed on NASDAQ just last month, managed to lose USD 47.7 million in the first quarter of this year).

The coolest of the cool consider Weibo passe now, and signals are that WeChat may be headed in the same direction. China Daily reported earlier this month that social media fatigue is already turning people off WeChat, much in the same way it hit Weibo last year. From China Daily's report:

Quote:

Wei Kang, an office worker in Beijing, said he receives "tons of messages" from his colleagues in WeChat's chat groups, even on weekends.

Wei said he spends about an hour daily replying to messages from his colleagues, and has to check WeChat every few minutes because messages from his boss might be among the sea of notifications.

"I feel like I have been kidnapped by WeChat," Wei said.

Wei is not the only user feeling bombarded by the app. Early in February, Huang Zhen, a professor from the Central University of Finance and Economics, caused a buzz on the Internet when he announced he would abandon all WeChat chat groups and "try to find some inner peace".

In a survey in March by a newspaper in Shanghai, two-thirds of respondents had feelings of being "kidnapped" by WeChat, but most chose to put up with the barrage of messages and information.

The "Moments" section on WeChat, for instance, has waned in popularity as it has become a place for people to either share ads or Chicken Soup for the Soul-type articles.

"My WeChat 'Moments' are basically spammed by these every single day, which is quite annoying," a WeChat user screen-named "HXfengai" said.

Who knows what fate has in store for WeChat – chances are that next year's hot social media property in China's hyper-connected society is merely a blip in a nerdy coders mind at this point, awaiting the 20-minute Powerpoint that's going to score said nerd 20 billion in venture capital to provide the unwashed masses with yet another digital distraction. Or, maybe, just maybe, people might just start to find their 'moments' outside of dull social media platforms.

Image: Sinchen.Lin (Flickr)