Last May, a beef between two of China’s most influential tech entrepreneurs spilled on to social media.
In a post celebrating record downloads of his short video app Douyin, founder Zhang Yiming accused Tencent’s messaging service WeChat of “plagiarising” Douyin’s content. Tencent’s Pony Ma shot back that Mr Zhang’s comments were “defamatory”. The two companies have gone further, filing competing lawsuits against each other over content and data.
Few outside of China may have heard of Mr Yiming or his company. But the group, with its 300m-plus monthly users, is the rare start-up with a shot at challenging the country’s biggest tech companies.