Tencent’s Pony Ma, ByteDance’s Zhang Yiming in online spat over accusations of blocking and plagiarism

The CEOs of two of China’s biggest tech companies engaged in an online bickering match on Tuesday after one accused the other of plagiarism.

Pony Ma Huateng, head of internet giant Tencent Holdings, fired back with an uncharacteristic public retort when Zhang Yiming, whose Douyin video platform is blocked by Tencent’s WeChat, accused Tencent’s Weishi video platform of “plagiarising” Douyin.

“The progress of Douyin was unstoppable despite Tencent’s blocking and Weishi’s plagiarism,” Zhang originally wrote on his WeChat Moments account, where he also cited a report showing that the viral short video platform Douyin, known as Tik Tok outside China, was the most downloaded iOS app worldwide in the first quarter of the year, with more than 45 million installs from Apple’s App Store, according to US research firm Sensor Tower Store Intelligence. 

However, it was only when Zhang, CEO of Beijing ByteDance Technology, followed up with the comment, “The growth of Douyin cannot be stopped despite WeChat blocking Douyin on its platform and [Tencent’s] Weishi copying and plagiarising Douyin,” that the usually low profile Tencent CEO and founder weighed in with a short, sharp reply: “[Your comments] can be understood as slander.”  

In a follow up retort on his WeChat Moments Zhang wrote: “The former [blocking] is not suitable for discussion and the latter [plagiarism] is being proven. I do not intend to start a verbal dispute.