Tencent’s WeChat super-app enables its Chinese users to chat, play games, shop, read news, pay for meals and much more, providing unparalleled convenience for its one billion users. However, Chinese workers are finding that such convenience comes at a price as company bosses increasingly use WeChat to assign tasks to their employees.
Now authorities in the Xiangzhou district of the southern Chinese coastal city of Zhuhai are pushing back with proposed measures designed to separate work from play on the app. “No working messages should be sent to WeChat working groups during non-working hours,” according to a proposal announced earlier this month on the district’s official WeChat account.