The online gaming industry was shaken this week when an
official newspaper criticized their offerings as spiritual opium and cited
examples of students playing Tencent's wildly popular Honor of Kings game for
hours.
The lawsuit filed Friday by Beijing prosecutors against a
Tencent subsidiary complains the company infringes the legitimate rights and
interests of minors but didn't explain how.
In the notice, prosecutors said that other agencies and
organizations which intend to bring lawsuits against the subsidiary should
contact prosecutors within 30 days.
Tencent is best known abroad as the operator of the popular
WeChat messaging system. It is one of the world's 10 most valuable tech
companies, with a stock market capitalization of about $560 billion.
In a statement on its social media account, the WeChat team
promised to conduct self-examination of the functions of WeChat Youth Mode and
sincerely respond to the civil public interest litigation.
We attach great importance to the healthy growth of young
people, and WeChat will actively assume the social responsibility of protecting
and guiding young people, the statement said.
Tencent and other Chinese tech giants including e-commerce
platform Alibaba Group have been fined and reprimanded in a series of
anti-monopoly, data protection and other enforcement campaigns launched since
last year.
The share prices of Tencent, Alibaba, ride-hailing service
Didi Global and other companies have fallen on foreign stock exchanges while
investors wait to see how far the crackdown will go.
Regulators say they are taking action to protect consumers,
market competition and smaller companies. Foreign commentators also see an
effort by the ruling Communist Party to force China's biggest private sector
companies to align with Beijing's official industry and economic development
plans.