Weixin to Require Confirmation for Business Group Adds

Weixin, the popular Chinese messaging application operated by Tencent, has announced it will introduce a mandatory confirmation feature for users being added to business groups. This move comes after media reports highlighted cases where elderly users were added to a large number of business groups without their consent, leading to an overwhelming volume of unread messages.

One widely reported incident involved an 88-year-old woman who had accumulated over 770,000 unread messages, primarily from business groups associated with short video promotions and health product sales. These groups were allegedly created using Weixin's business account features, which, under certain conditions (groups of 40 or fewer), allowed users to be added without explicit approval.

Family members discovered the issue when visiting the woman and found her messaging app filled with unfamiliar contacts and constant notifications. They attempted to mitigate the problem by enabling a "minor mode" which requires user consent for group invitations, but the underlying issue of unauthorized additions persisted. Weixin confirmed that the woman had been added to over 1,900 groups by more than 1,200 business accounts in recent years.

The platform stated that the new mandatory confirmation function will be applied to business accounts exhibiting abnormal behavior, aiming to prevent unsolicited invitations. This addresses concerns about vulnerable demographics, such as the elderly, being targeted by aggressive marketing or potential scams through the platform's business features. With China's internet penetration at 80.1% and a significant portion of its over 1.1 billion netizens aged 50 and above, enhancing user protection on widely used platforms like Weixin is a critical step.