The Moments has become a chaotic shopping mall: Can WeChat be saved?

There is no doubt that WeChat has become one of the most indispensable social applications. Its importance even caught Tencent executives off guard, as WeChat has impacted the status of QQ.

But it is obvious that in order to make WeChat grow, Tencent did not treat QQ equally, but let QQ "sacrifice itself". Ma Huateng said at the end of November 2017 that the emergence of WeChat hit QQ's business, and QQ made a huge sacrifice, but this was a strategic necessity.

However, at present, WeChat still has many problems.

The most frustrating problem is not the various viral information, but that WeChat Moments has become a "chaotic shopping mall."

WeChat merchants, numerous retail enterprises, fraud groups, etc., have made WeChat Moments a mess. Although Tencent has cracked down on them many times, there will always be new ways to exploit loopholes.

As the new year approaches, can Tencent still save the WeChat Moments?

Chaotic shopping mall! WeChat's closed environment has caused many chaos

In essence, WeChat is a social application. Unlike open shopping platforms such as Taobao, WeChat tries its best to create a closed social environment, with the goal of allowing users to communicate in this environment.

But the micro-businesses have obviously gone astray, treating WeChat as a "supermarket" where they can do whatever they want. They have "occupied the mountain" to sell goods.

For WeChat merchants, the most valuable asset is the WeChat account. Each WeChat account can have 5,000 friends, and each friend is a potential gold mine. Therefore, many WeChat merchants have registered many accounts to continuously gather popularity. However, it is obvious that manual management is too complicated and impossible to achieve, which has led to the proliferation of group control systems.

It is understood that the group control system can help WeChat merchants add friends through nearby people, shake, drifting bottles, etc., and can also automatically update the circle of friends information, like, sell goods, etc. The group control system can even allow WeChat to locate all parts of the country, add nearby people as friends with beautiful women's avatars as bait, post to the circle of friends or pretend to be a beautiful woman to chat and make friends with users, and finally guide the other party to give themselves red envelopes, or recommend stocks to the other party, sell tea, etc. to defraud money.

In addition, many people have encountered this situation: scanning codes in public spaces such as shopping malls and cinemas to get small gifts, but their WeChat accounts have turned into "mass messaging machines", sending spam information such as supermarket discounts and new store openings to all their friends.

Coupled with the practice of inviting people to place orders in WeChat Moments, WeChat has become a "chaotic shopping mall" in this closed environment.

Just block it! Tencent’s simple and crude response

In fact, Tencent has been fighting against various chaos in WeChat Moments. In addition to optimizing algorithms and other aspects, Tencent has been responding in a simple and rough way - blocking WeChat accounts.

For example, on December 18, the WeChat Security Center issued an announcement stating that, as of now, through user reporting data and verification and confirmation, a total of more than 120 WeChat groups have been restricted in group functions, and more than 1,100 WeChat accounts have been subject to tiered penalties such as restricted function usage or restricted login.

In late December, many people found that their WeChat accounts were blocked, and the types of bans they received varied in the account penalty instructions: some were for 1 day, some for 2 days, and some were indefinite.

The reason given by the WeChat Center for blocking the account is: the WeChat account has been restricted from logging in due to the use of unofficial WeChat clients, and if it continues to be used in the future, login will be permanently restricted.

WeChat’s account ban this time mainly targets users who use third-party software to log in. Most of the blocked users used WeChat clone software and played with multiple accounts. Considering that WeChat merchants are the main users of multiple accounts and clones, this move is basically aimed at cracking down on WeChat merchants.

However, Tencent's tough attitude still failed to prevent the chaos from happening, and even gave rise to a more segmented chain of interests.

There are already teams that specialize in providing "WeChat unblocking" services, and there are even factions. One faction specializes in "friend-assisted verification" and the other specializes in "non-friend-assisted verification."

The existence of these services also makes micro-businesses more unscrupulous.

Tencent cannot fully control WeChat Moments

Perhaps in Tencent’s mind, WeChat Moments is its own “one acre and three points of land.” After all, we all know that, like QQ accounts, people only have the right to use WeChat accounts, but Tencent holds the ownership.

Therefore, from Tencent’s perspective, the best state of WeChat Moments is that it “enjoys it alone”. After clearing out all micro-businesses and taking over the advertising power of WeChat Moments, Tencent can make its own rules.

Whether it is directly cooperating with merchants and enterprises to push large quantities of advertisements accurately, or seeking advertising agencies, Tencent can make a lot of money.

However, facing WeChat with hundreds of millions of users, it is difficult for Tencent to completely control the circle of friends. The pervasive chain of interests, coupled with the extremely easy registration of WeChat accounts, will lead to the chaos in WeChat Moments continuing for a long time.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.