California WeChat Users Sue Tencent Over Fear of Chinese Censors

A group of California WeChat users sued Tencent Holdings Ltd., the Chinese owner of the messaging and payment app, for allegedly violating their right to privacy by surveilling and censoring their communications.

Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a group promoting transition to Democracy in China, and six anonymous WeChat users said comments made using WeChat that can be perceived as critical of the Chinese government have led to the users’ accounts being frozen, causing them to be cut of from friends and relatives in China as well as their business clients in the U.S.

“All this chills constitutionally protected ...