BEIJING (CHINA) – Chinese short video app Douyin of ByteDance has filed a lawsuit in Beijing suing Tencent Holdings for monopolistic behaviour and seeking compensation of 90 million yuan ($13.94 million), the firm said on Tuesday.
The firm said that Tencent prevents users from sharing Douyin content on its instant messaging apps such as WeChat and QQ and it should be prohibited by anti-monopoly law, adding that it sought legal action to prevent such behaviour.
“We believe that competition is better for consumers and promote innovation,” Douyin said in a statement. “We have filed a lawsuit to protect our rights and those of our users.”
This comes as Chinese regulators are stepping up curbs on tech giants. Beijing issued draft rules in November which are aimed at curbing monopolistic behaviour by internet firms.
In China ByteDance competes with Tencent in social media. In 2018, it had sued Tencent for anti-competitive behaviour, alleging that social platform QQ zone of Tencent and its Guanjia software blocked ByteDance’s news aggregator Toutiao’s links.