{"id":15043,"date":"2019-05-07T13:12:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T13:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/tencent-promises-its-technology-will-do-good.html"},"modified":"2019-05-07T13:12:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T13:12:36","slug":"tencent-promises-its-technology-will-do-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/tencent-promises-its-technology-will-do-good.html","title":{"rendered":"Tencent promises its technology will \u2018do good\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tencent, one of Asia\u2019s most valuable companies with a current market cap of around $460 billion<\/a>, has introduced a new motto after co-founder and CEO Pony Ma said this week he wanted \u2018tech for good\u2019 to be part of the company\u2019s vision and mission in the future.<\/p>\n

The company has not yet officialized the new corporate philosophy and it\u2019s unclear how the \u201cdon\u2019t be evil\u201d-like slogan will manifest in Tencent\u2019s business strategy. Nor do we know if it will replace the old mission, which is still emblazoned on its website:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Tencent\u2019s mission is to \u201cimprove the quality of life through internet value-added services\u201d. Guided by its \u201cuser oriented\u201d business philosophy, Tencent achieves its mission via the delivery of integrated internet solutions to over 1 billion netizens.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Episodes of recent events can probably provide some hints to what the new slogan might entail. The old mission, which focuses on the individual user rather than the wider society, has led Tencent to supremacy in video games and social media; the\u00a0company is the operator behind the billion-user messager WeChat <\/a> and several top-grossing video games. But these segments of businesses are under growing pressure as China\u2019s changing regulatory environment and industry rivals create challenges for the 21-year-old behemoth.<\/p>\n

A months-long gaming freeze<\/a> last year put a squeeze on Tencent\u2019s gaming revenues, wiping billions of dollars from its market cap. Rising short-video app Douyin, which is TikTok\u2019s local version, threatens Tencent\u2019s dominance<\/a> in the social and content realms.<\/p>\n

To stay competitive, the company underwent a sweeping re-organization<\/a> last October to place more focus on enterprise businesses, such as cloud\u00a0computing<\/a> and other digital infrastructure for industries ranging from finance, healthcare, education to government services.<\/p>\n

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Tencent shakeup puts the focus on enterprise<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The new focus to upgrade entrenched industries not only opens up more revenue streams; these sectors also provide the testing ground for Tencent to put its \u2018tech for good\u2019 mission into practice.<\/p>\n

As Ma pledged at the government-run industry conference Digital China Summit<\/a> on Monday, Tencent believes \u201ctechnology can bring benefits to the human race; humans should make good use of technology and refrain from its evil use; and technology should strive to solve the problems it brings to society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ma pointed to three key areas where technology can generate positive changes: traditional industries, where Tencent could provide big data capabilities to beef up efficiency in production; government units, where Tencent could leverage its apps to digitize a slew of civil services such as applying for visas and renewing drivers\u2019 licenses; and society, which is a broad and arguably vague definition but has seen efforts like tracing missing children using Tencent\u2019s face recognition solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at parallels across the globe, Google <\/a> proposed \u2018do no evil\u2019 as its code of conduct ahead of its initial public offering 20 years ago. I think this kind of elevated mission is evidence of the amount of influence a company has accumulated,\u201d Zhong Xin, a former Qualcomm engineer who founded the artificial intelligence-powered medical imaging startup 12 Sigma, said to TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnology is a double-edged sword. A company needs a guiding principle to determine its proper use, so I believe the purported mission to do good with technology is inevitable,\u201d added Xin.<\/p>\n

From the government\u2019s standpoint, a corporate motto that focuses on doing good is clearly music to the ears. Tencent\u2019s new code of conduct comes as China\u2019s tech darlings face mounting public and government criticisms for their adverse impact on society, a movement mirroring Silicon Valley\u2019s tech backlash.<\/a>\u00a0The charges range from video games\u2019 role in causing\u00a0bad eyesight<\/a> among children, which put Tencent in the crosshairs; to clickbait content<\/a>\u00a0running rampant on Bytedance\u2019s popular news app, Toutiao.<\/p>\n

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Silicon Valley\u2019s year of reckoning<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201c\u2018Doing good\u2019 should be an inherent value to all technology companies, including venture investors,\u201d Wang Jing, partner at venture capital firm Sky9 Capital<\/a>, suggested to TechCrunch. \u201cWhen companies have to single out \u2018doing good\u2019 on a special occasion, it may be that something has already gone wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many tech heavyweights in question have responded to backlashes by imposing stricter policies over their products. Tencent, for example, launched an underage-protection mode for all its gaming titles that would allow parents to monitor children\u2019s play time. Toutiao, <\/a> too, has hired thousands of auditors to root out content deemed inappropriate by the authority.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Tencent has weighed in on its own ethics. The phrase \u2018tech for good\u2019 was first unveiled by Tencent co-founder and former CTO Tony Zhang in early 2018, but it has probably garnered more attention among the executives after an essay titled \u201cTencent has no dream\u201d<\/a> sparked heated debate in the Chinese tech circle. Penned by a veteran journalist, the article argued that Tencent was fixated on seeking investment-worthy products rather than inventing its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople argued that Tencent has no dream. By bringing up the slogan \u2018tech for good\u2019, Tencent seems to be proclaiming to the public that it does have a dream,\u201d Derek Shen, who is chairman at shared housing startup Danke<\/a> and formerly headed LinkedIn China, told TechCrunch. \u201cAnd its dream is big, which is to do good things to people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/NzWmGNcSVbM\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tencent, one of Asia\u2019s most valuable companies with a current market cap of around $460 billion, has introduced a new motto after co-founder and CEO Pony Ma said this week <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-15043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t