Industry

Toutiao Fights Back by Suing Tencent for 90 million

Jun 04, 2018, 23:54pm2018/06/04 23:55:07 Ska Sijia

Last week, Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> filed a lawsuit against Toutiao asking for a token compensation of 1 yuan, or 15 cents USD. A week later on June 1st, Toutiao filed a lawsuit against Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> to retaliate, but with a demand of 90 million yuan (US$14 million) in compensation.

SEE ALSO: Tencent files lawsuit against Toutiao for 1 yuan

In addition to monetary compensation, Toutiao also demanded a public apology from Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder />. According to Toutiao, Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> has been intentionally filtering out content shared from Toutiao and Douyin – two of Bytedance’s flagship products – through its security software Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> Mobility Manager.

Toutiao claimed that the aforementioned content filtering was done under the disguise of threshold values, software bugs, as well as others anti-competitive moves that Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> intentionally deployed.

“For the purpose of consolidating Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder />‘s monopoly in the industry, the 1 yuan lawsuit earlier was just one of the many corporate moves that Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> has taken to oppress Toutiao’s competitiveness,” said a Toutiao staff familiar with the matter.