Nov 14, 2023

After numerous twists and turns and a prolonged wait, the class action lawsuit against WeChat is finally scheduled to be tried at the California Court of Appeal in San Jose, California, on November 16, 2023. Times Wang, the lead attorney for plaintiffs in this case, will be appearing in court to present oral arguments. The entire trial will be webcast live, and details will be announced.

The class action WeChat case was initiated and organized by Citizen Power Initiatives for China (CPIFC), a human rights organization based in Washington, D.C., USA. CPIFC, along with six WeChat users as the plaintiffs, formally filed a lawsuit in the California Superior Court in Santa Clara on January 8, 2021. Leading the lawsuit are Times Wang, founder of North River; Mark Lanier, founder of LLF and legendary trial lawyer; Ken Starr, former U.S. Attorney General and independent investigator of the Clinton-Lewinsky case; and Paul Hoffman, a prominent constitutional and civil rights litigator with SSHHZ.

In September 2021, Judge Patricia M. Lucas of the Santa Clara Superior Court ruled that lawsuits against Tencent, the parent company of WeChat, must be pursued in court, rejecting Tencent’s attempts to move the case to private arbitration. This ensures that the filing of a lawsuit of great public significance will take place in a public forum, rather than in private arbitration.

The entire process, from project preparation in early 2020 to formal filing in 2021, and now to the trial in 2023, has been a collaborative effort by a team of lawyers and volunteers. We express our gratitude to the plaintiffs for their positive response, courageous filing, and patience! More individuals and organizations are welcome to join the class action lawsuit against WeChat. For additional details and progress on the case, please visit the Class Action WeChat Project website at www.wechatlawsuit.com.

WeChat Class Lawsuit Team

WASHINGTON, DC, January 8, 2021

Citizen Power Initiatives for China (“CPIFC”) filed a lawsuit today in the Superior Court for the State of California, Santa Clara County, alleging that the censorship and surveillance practices and policies of WeChat, the dominant social media and payments application in the Chinese-speaking world, violates numerous aspects of California law. Joining the lawsuit are six California WeChat users who have suffered significant financial, emotional, and psychological harm as a result of those practices and policies. The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the challenged practices and policies are unlawful under California law, issue an injunction against them, and to order that defendants pay damages for the harms they caused. The defendants are Tencent America LLC and Tencent International Service. Ltd.

The lawsuit is the product of a nearly year-long investigation by CPIFC and its attorneys, which included interviews with hundreds of WeChat users in the United States. It was inspired by outrage felt across the Chinese-speaking world over the role censorship and surveillance on WeChat played in exacerbating the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, as well as outrage felt by many U.S. WeChat users over their seeming inability to communicate over WeChat free of such censorship and surveillance, even in the United States.

“As the global erosion of democratic values shows little sign of relenting, this lawsuit is part of our attempt to slow that erosion, and to perhaps help turn the tide, by relying on the rule of law,” said Dr. Yang Jianli, CPIFC’s founder and president. “Democracy depends on being able to communicate free of politically motivated censorship, and hopefully this lawsuit will help Chinese-speaking Californians, who make up so much of the Chinese diaspora, do just that.”

The plaintiffs are represented by North River Law PLLC, a human rights law firm based in Washington, DC, along with Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP, a law firm with deep experience in human and civil rights litigation based in Los Angeles, California, and the Lanier Law Firm, a nationally renowned litigation and trial firm based in Houston, Texas.

Prominent Law Firms and Lawyers Join in Our Effort to Bring Class Action Lawsuits Against WeChat

October 12, 2020. Citizen Power Initiatives for China (CPIFC) is pleased to announce that it is consulting with two prominent American law firms to evaluate potential causes courses of action against WeChat: the Lanier Law Firm of Houston, Texas, and Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP of Los Angeles, California. CPIFC is coordinating with legendary trial lawyer Mark Lanier, former federal judge and U.S. Solicitor General Ken Starr, and the distinguished constitutional and civil rights litigator Paul Hoffman, as well as their highly skilled colleagues. Together, these acclaimed attorneys are helping CPIFC in both assessing WeChat’s potential liability and determining the most effective remedies to redress the company’s harmful actions.

WeChat’s terms of service are essentially a contract of adhesion for an essential service with no reasonable alternative that requires people in the U.S. to give up both their speech rights and their privacy. There is evidence that WeChat shares private user data with Communist Party-dominated state authorities. Meanwhile, WeChat’s parent company Tencent conceals its ties to the Chinese government from U.S. investors. All this violates state and federal law, and regulators can and should sue to require that Tencent comply with those laws.

Ever since CPIFC began organizing class action lawsuits against WeChat in February, 2020, the team has put forth bilingual online platforms (Website www.wechatlawsuit.com, email wechatfight@gmail.com and telephone hotline +1-240-787-6568) to collect cases and maintained contacts and consultation with hundreds of prospective plaintiffs.

Under the guidance of the prominent legal experts noted above, the CPIFC team will continue to collect cases classified into the following four types:

• Cases of Being Prosecuted Directly Based On Use of WeChat. The abuses include, but are not limited to: been harassed, been forced to relocate, loss of employment, being illegally questioned through “tea drinking,” being summoned to police stations, being disciplined, being arrested, being sentenced, being physically tortured.
• Cases of Suffering Financial Losses From the Closure of WeChat Accounts Due to So-Called “Improper Statement and/or Sensitive Information.”  Financial losses from the closure of WeChat accounts, WeChat official (public) accounts, WeChat Applets, including but are not limited to: WeChat official accounts cannot receive monetary tips; WeChat Applets are not able to run business; cannot retrieve money from WeChat wallet; and other financial losses due to loss of saved contacts in WeChat.
• Cases of Suffering Mental or Material Losses Due to Violation of Privacy and/or Speech Censorship by WeChat. Losses could be caused by, but are not limited to: private contents being leaked, posts being deleted, accounts being closed, WeChat Moment being censored, WeChat group being disbanded, cannot add friends, published posts in group chat can only be seen by the sender, the share button being disabled.
• Cases of Investors Who Suffer Losses from Tencent Hiding Its Relationship with the Chinese Government.

Inspired by partnership with these prominent law firms and lawyers, CPIFC is more confident than ever that we will win this very important battle for the freedom of speech. We invite individuals and groups to collaborate with us, and welcome financial assistance for our efforts in this battle.

Through the hard work of its team under the guidance of its legal counsels, CPIFC is ready to launch a bilingual online platform to collect cases for a class action lawsuit against WeChat. This is its link www.wechatlawsuit.com

The cases we are intent on collecting are classified into the following four types:

1. Cases of Being Prosecuted Directly Caused by the Censorship of WeChat. The abuses include, but are not limited to: been harassed, been forced to relocate, loss of employment, being illegally questioned through “tea drinking”, being summoned to police stations, being disciplined, being arrested, being sentenced, being physically tortured.)
2. Cases of Suffering Financial Losses From the Closure of WeChat Accounts Due to So-Called “Improper Statement and/or Sensitive Information”. The financial losses from the closure of WeChat account, WeChat official (public) account, WeChat Applets, include but are not limited to: WeChat official accounts cannot receive monetary tips; WeChat Applets are not able to run business; cannot retrieve money from WeChat wallet; and other financial loses due to loss of saved contacts in WeChat.
3. Cases of Suffering Mental or Material Losses Due to Violation of Privacy and/or Speech Censorship by WeChat. The suffering of losses could be caused by, but are not limited to: privacy contents been leaked, posts been deleted, account been closed, WeChat Moment been censored, WeChat group been disbanded, cannot add friends, published posts in group chat can only be seen by the sender, the share button being disabled.)
4. Cases of Investors Who Suffer Losses From Tencent Hiding Its Relationship with the Chinese Government.

CPIFC team will review all the information collected, and select cases of merits. Then we will reach out to the potential plaintiffs associated with the selected cases for further coordination of evidence and actions.

CPIFC will continue welcoming support, advice and cooperation from individuals and organizations.

Citizen Power Initiatives for China (CPIFC)
Washington, DC
March 27, 2020

Since the beginning of preparations for the lawsuits, CPIFC has received much information from individuals and organizations with their individual experiences with WeChat.

With over a billion users, WeChat is owned by China based Tencent holdings and is the main messaging, banking and communication platform used by Chinese.

It was WeChat that led the harassment of Wuhan Dr. Li Wenliang and seven colleagues who were those who initially reported on the Wuhan virus and were mercilessly attacked over the messaging service, and ultimately Dr. Wenliang lost his life to the very virus he sought to warn about.

Instead of modifying their efforts on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party as a result of the death off Dr. Wenliang and the dramatic growth of the Wuhan Virus, WeChat had doubled down their surveillance and harassment efforts. The accounts of Professor Zhao Shilin, Professor Xu Zhangrui and others, for example, who have written on the Wuhan virus have been shut down for ever.

I am glad to announce that three litigation attorneys are leading the effort. CPICF is appealing for assistance with individual experiences of those who have used WeChat as well as those who would like to assist in the effort to call WeChat out for their efforts on behalf of the Chinese Communist Regime.

Jianli Yang
Founder and President of Citizen Power Initiatives for China
A Survivor of the Tiananmen Massacre and Former Political Prisoner of China

On February 6th, 2020, coronavirus whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang died of the virus as well as from the suppression of speech, leaving behind a rousing yet commonsensical remark: “A healthy society should not have just one voice.”

Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to ravage because the truth is hidden. The virus is now threatening the lives of millions of Chinese people and people around the world. All of a sudden, Chinese people are awakened: “Letting people speak their minds is not life-threatening. However, silencing people costs the lives of many. ” The voice for freedom of speech is unprecedentedly strong and eager.

Doctor Li Wenliang’s story started from him posting a message on WeChat group chat. He mentioned that, “There are 7 confirmed cases of SARS at Huanan Seafood Market…the latest news is, it has been confirmed that they are coronavirus infections.” WeChat’s monitoring led to his eventual doom.

Experts estimate that over 1 billion citizens living in China use WeChat, and another 100 to 120 million people outside China use WeChat. WeChat has become an indispensable part of their daily communication and indeed, of their lives. Therefore, it is arguable that the Chinese people’s freedom of speech is to a certain extent the freedom of speech on WeChat.

Li Wenliang is by no means the only one who has been “admonished” or severely prosecuted because of WeChat’s monitoring function. The former president of the Xinjiang Food and Drug Administration’s Department of Inspection and Supervision and the former principal of Xinjiang Medical University, Halmurat Ghopur, is another victim. He was accused of exhibiting “nationalistic tendencies” on WeChat, and was sentenced to death with two years of suspension for attempting to split the country and carrying out extreme propaganda. The Christian Zhang Haitao was sentenced to nineteen years in prison for sending WeChat messages advocating human rights.

There are many more examples of WeChat providing messages as evidences for prosecution. Citizen Power Initiatives for China has been cooperating with other entities and individuals to collect these cases, which are all caused by the monitoring of WeChat. These are human rights cases where people are found guilty for their internationally protected speech.

This is not the only sin of WeChat. In fact, WeChat is a tool used by the Government of China to censor speech at home and abroad. A large number of internet policemen and internet commentators have been stationed on WeChat. They arbitrarily shut down accounts for publishing “illegal” speech and sensitive information, or block users without their acknowledgement. In the meantime, they guide public opinion to brainwash the people according to the instructions of the CCP. WeChat has many essential functions such as storing information, payments, purchasing tickets, obtaining medical care, etc. Therefore, shutting down accounts arbitrarily harms the rights of users and causes financial losses.

WeChat can also function for espionage, by collecting various types of user information at any time. The privacy of users is seriously violated. The resulting losses and potential harm caused are difficult to estimate.

WeChat is a social media platform developed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. (Tencent), which is the largest tech company in China. Tencent was listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and as an ADR stock in the U.S. as TCHEY. TCEHY trades on the New York Stock Exchange and is regulated by American Securities Association. By concealing its relationship with the Chinese government when it registered in the U.S., Tencent covered the political risk of its stock value and puts the investors’ assets in danger. There are over 700 subsidiary companies of Tencent, dozens of which are listed in the U.S. Tencent is thus taking the advantage of American capital to develop and participate in the deployment of the Chinese Ccommunist Party’s national surveillance system. Besides improving WeChat’s surveillance mechanism, Tencent puts great efforts into developing other technologies that help with political repression. These technologies include facial recognition system and other AI surveillance solutions.

In the past, WeChat adopted a content filtering mechanism called “one APP, two systems.” It censors domestic users and overseas users separately to circumvent the protection of the freedom of speech in the laws of democratic countries. Recently, however, the “one APP, two systems” model has evolved into “one APP, one system.” The information of many overseas users is undergoing censorship that is equivalent or even harsher than those on domestic users. The built-in browser of WeChat blocks websites from overseas users; overseas users are blocked on a large scale; more and more information is filtered; and people are banned from messaging. The People’s Armed Police uses the information provided by WeChat to harass, threaten, suppress, and prosecute the families of overseas Chinese activists.

Many WeChat users and shareholders have been raising the above questions on different occasions for a long time. They have expressed concern and discontent about the issue. Many users discussed with our team on how to fight against WeChat, and we have learned some powerful cases in the process. The death of Li Wenliang led to a consensus among Chinese people on requesting the freedom of speech. However, the Chinese government is intensifying its efforts to suppress speech and covering up the truth instead of learning lessons. This shows that maintaining the stability of its regime is far more important than millions of lives of Chinese people for the CCP.

We believe that Tencent has become the technology shackle for the CCP to restrict the freedom of the people. What Tencent has been doing domestically and overseas constitutes a serious violation to human rights and violates Chinese, American laws as well as the international law. We must start a battle for the freedom of speech, taking a stand against WeChat. By doing so, we can open space for the freedom of speech in China. This is why Citizen Power Initiatives for China officially is planning to initiate a class action lawsuit against WeChat (Tencent) in the United States.

With the guidance of North River Law PLLC, a D.C. law firm experienced in complex civil litigation and class actions, what we will do is the following:

1. Assemble a team of litigation lawyers.
2. Set up a team to continue collecting and sorting the following four types of cases.
   a) cases of being severely prosecuted directly caused by the censorship of WeChat.
   b) cases of suffering large financial losses from the closure of one’s own account. The closure is due to improper speech and/or sensitive information.
   c) cases of suffering mental and material loss due to violation of privacy by WeChat.
   d) cases of investors who suffer losses from Tencent hiding its relationship with the Chinese government.
3. Discuss with the lawyer team to choose the most powerful cases, then initiate the lawsuit formally. We plan to start from the cases of victimization of American citizens and permanent residents.
4. Mobilize users in China. Connect with the class action group of Chinese WeChat users and cooperate with them to carry on a larger-scale class action.

We invite individuals and groups to collaborate with us. We need more volunteers to work together and win this battle for the freedom of speech.