This page covers WeChat's Terms of Service across 8 scrapes spanning 2022-07-11 to 2025-11-26, with 5 unique snippets. WeChat_Acceptable_Use_Policy.jsonl, WeChat_Community_Guidelines.jsonl, and WeChat_Privacy_Policy.jsonl are all empty (0 lines) and have been skipped.
What this wiki found — complete, every page
Presence facts, not verdicts — each flagged term links to its definition and the exact clause on this page. Absence of a badge means the term isn't currently flagged here, not that the page is risk-free.
Independent reviews, where they had something to say
WeChat – Terms of Service
Dataset: PGAv2 (Platform Governance Archive v2) — 25 platforms, 2022–2026
PGAv2 (Platform Governance Archive v2) is this wiki’s legacy dataset: pre-tagged JSONL records covering 25 major social-media, messaging, and content-sharing platforms, with risk scores and keywords assigned via systematic extraction of 1,736 high-risk clauses from each platform’s Terms of Service, Privacy Policies, and Community Guidelines, spanning 2022–2026.
Note: This page contains documented policy clauses. Risk assessment is qualitative and context-dependent. For analysis of patterns across platforms, see:
Source: sources/jsonl/WeChat_Terms_of_Service.jsonl
Last updated: 2025-11-26
Overview
This page covers WeChat’s Terms of Service across 8 scrapes spanning 2022-07-11 to 2025-11-26, with 5 unique snippets. WeChat_Acceptable_Use_Policy.jsonl, WeChat_Community_Guidelines.jsonl, and WeChat_Privacy_Policy.jsonl are all empty (0 lines) and have been skipped.
WeChat’s “Your Content” clause grants WeChat and its affiliates “a perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use Your Content… for the purposes of providing, promoting, developing and trying to improve WeChat and our other services, including new services that we may provide in the future” — and, in the same clause, separately states “you grant other WeChat users a non-exclusive licence to access and use Your Content within WeChat” — a confirmed user-to-user grant alongside the platform-to-itself grant, joining Pinterest’s, Quora’s, Snapchat’s, and Twitch’s similarly-structured clauses. A separate “Our Intellectual Property Rights” clause grants users only a narrow, “non-sublicensable, non-transferrable, royalty-free and revocable right to use WeChat,” with an explicit ban on creating “derivative works” of, or reverse-engineering, the WeChat Software itself.
Flagged Keywords & Risks
royalty-free,transferable,sublicensable— Tag the “Your Content” license WeChat takes from users, and the separate “non-sublicensable” license WeChat grants back to users over its own software. Why it matters: the asymmetry is conventional (broad rights for WeChat, narrow rights for users), but the explicit user-to-user sub-grant (“you grant other WeChat users a non-exclusive licence… within WeChat”) is a less common, higher-impact feature worth flagging.sublicense,derivative works,create derivative— Tag the “Our Intellectual Property Rights” restriction: users “may not copy, modify, create derivative works, reverse compile, reverse engineer or extract source codes from WeChat Software,” and “may not sell, distribute, redistribute or sublicense” it. Why it matters: conventional restriction protecting WeChat’s own software, the same direction as Twitch’s/LinkedIn’s equivalent “Don’ts” clauses.
Legal Context & Research Significance
The “Your Content” clause’s perpetual, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free grant to WeChat and its affiliates falls under wearetosed’s “data sharing & selling” category given its extension to affiliates and use “for the purposes of providing, promoting, developing and trying to improve WeChat and our other services, including new services that we may provide in the future” — an open-ended forward-looking grant. The confirmed user-to-user sub-grant (“you grant other WeChat users a non-exclusive licence to access and use Your Content within WeChat”) is the kind of clause structure Javed and Sajid (2024) would categorize by sector (social media) and by the breadth of parties covered, and it illustrates why automated keyword extraction alone (used in only 42.57% of the literature they reviewed) can understate risk: a single “Your Content” clause here carries at least two analytically distinct grants — platform-directed and user-directed — that a simple keyword tag does not differentiate.
Changes Summary
| Date | What changed |
|---|---|
| 2022-07-11 | Baseline version (first scrape in this dataset). |
| 2022-09-20 | No changes from previous version. |
| 2023-02-28 | No changes from previous version. |
| 2023-08-01 | No changes from previous version. |
| 2024-02-01 | No changes from previous version. |
| 2024-02-19 | No changes from previous version. |
| 2025-10-03 | No changes from previous version. |
| 2025-11-26 | Cosmetic rewording only, confirmed via diff: hyphenation changes (“third party” → “third-party”), and markdown heading restructuring (e.g. ”### YOUR CONTENT” → “6. YOUR CONTENT ----”). No substantive change to either license clause. |
Version History
2022-07-11
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
Clause: royalty-free, transferable
you must contact us within 30 days of the date of the relevant charge; and * b. no refunds will be given for any erroneous charges after such 30 days period. We may process payments from you in WeChat via a third party service, and we may provide your relevant Information to such third parties to process your payments. You agree to comply with that relevant third party’s terms and conditions in relation to the payment processing service, as further set out in the “Third Party Content and Services” section below. ### YOUR CONTENT When you submit, upload, transmit or display any data, information, media or other content in connection with your use of WeChat (“Your Content”), you understand and agree that: * you will continue to own and be responsible for Your Content; * we will not sell Your Content to any third party; * you are giving us and our affiliate companies a perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use Your Content (with no fees or charges payable by us to you) for the purposes of providing, promoting, developing and trying to improve WeChat and our other services, including new services that we may provide in the future. All such use will, to the extent Your Content contains Personal Information, be in accordance with our WeChat Privacy Policy. As part of this licence, we and our affiliate companies may, subject to the WeChat Privacy Policy, copy, reproduce, host, store, process, adapt, modify, translate, perform, distribute and publish Your Content worldwide in all media and by all distribution methods, including those that are developed in the future; * you grant other WeChat users a non-exclusive licence to access and use Your Content within WeChat, in accordance with these Terms and WeChat’s functionalities; * we may share Your Content with third parties that we work with to help provide, promote, develop and improve WeChat in accordance with the WeChat Privacy Policy; * we may use the name that you submit in connection with Your Content (whether that be your account name, real name or otherwise); and * you will comply with these Terms, including our WeChat Acceptable Use Policy, in your submission of Your Content. In addition, you agree that we and our affiliate companies (subject to these Terms, our WeChat Privacy Policy and applicable laws and regulations): * are allowed to retain and continue to use Your Content after you stop using WeChat; * may be required to retain or disclose Your Content: (a) in order to comply with applicable laws or regulations; (b) in order to comply with a court order, subpoena or other legal process; (c) in order to respond to a lawful request by a government authority, law enforcement agency or similar body; or (d) where we believe it is reasonably necessary to comply with applicable laws or regulations, in each case including (where applicable) orders, requests and other legal processes issued or made pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaty or similar lawful means. You may refer to our Law Enforcement Data Request Guidelines and Governmental Request Policy for further details on how we may retain or disclose Your Content; * may be required to retain or disclose Your Content in order to enforce these Terms or to protect any rights, property or safety of ours, our affiliate companies or other users of WeChat.
Clause: royalty-free, sublicensable
as explained in more detail in our WeChat Privacy Policy, we may use targeted advertising to try to make advertising more relevant and valuable to you. ### OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS All intellectual property rights in or to WeChat and any WeChat Software (including any future updates, upgrades and new versions to all such WeChat Software), will continue to belong to us and our licensors. Except as expressly provided in these Terms, you have no right to use our intellectual property rights, including our trademarks or product names, logos, domain names or other distinctive brand features, without our prior written consent. Any comments or suggestions you may provide regarding WeChat are entirely voluntary and we will be free to use these comments and suggestions at our discretion (including using such comments to improve existing services or create new services) without any payment or other obligation to you. We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferrable, royalty-free and revocable right to use WeChat and any software from us as part of or in relation to your use of WeChat (any such software being the “WeChat Software”), solely in accordance with these Terms and subject to any other instructions as provided by us to you in relation to your use of WeChat and/or the WeChat Software from time to time. Please note that these terms may be supplemented by terms and conditions applicable to WeChat Software (or specific features within WeChat Software). You may not copy, modify, create derivative works, reverse compile, reverse engineer or extract source codes from WeChat Software, and you may not sell, distribute, redistribute or sublicense WeChat or the WeChat Software, except in each case to the extent that we may not prohibit you from doing so under applicable laws or regulations or you have our prior written consent to do so. Where applicable laws or regulations entitle you to reverse compile or extract source codes from WeChat Software, you will first contact us to request the information you need. We may from time to time provide updates to WeChat Software.
Clause: sublicense, derivative works, create derivative
Except as expressly provided in these Terms, you have no right to use our intellectual property rights, including our trademarks or product names, logos, domain names or other distinctive brand features, without our prior written consent. Any comments or suggestions you may provide regarding WeChat are entirely voluntary and we will be free to use these comments and suggestions at our discretion (including using such comments to improve existing services or create new services) without any payment or other obligation to you. We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferrable, royalty-free and revocable right to use WeChat and any software from us as part of or in relation to your use of WeChat (any such software being the “WeChat Software”), solely in accordance with these Terms and subject to any other instructions as provided by us to you in relation to your use of WeChat and/or the WeChat Software from time to time. Please note that these terms may be supplemented by terms and conditions applicable to WeChat Software (or specific features within WeChat Software). You may not copy, modify, create derivative works, reverse compile, reverse engineer or extract source codes from WeChat Software, and you may not sell, distribute, redistribute or sublicense WeChat or the WeChat Software, except in each case to the extent that we may not prohibit you from doing so under applicable laws or regulations or you have our prior written consent to do so. Where applicable laws or regulations entitle you to reverse compile or extract source codes from WeChat Software, you will first contact us to request the information you need. We may from time to time provide updates to WeChat Software. Such updates may occur automatically or manually. Please note that WeChat Software may not operate properly or at all if upgrades or new versions are not installed by you.
2022-09-20
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
All clauses unchanged from 2022-07-11 (see above).
2023-02-28
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
All clauses unchanged from 2022-09-20 (see above).
2023-08-01
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
All clauses unchanged from 2023-02-28 (see above).
2024-02-01
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
All clauses unchanged from 2023-08-01 (see above).
2024-02-19
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
All clauses unchanged from 2024-02-01 (see above).
2025-10-03
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
All clauses unchanged from 2024-02-19 (see above).
2025-11-26
- Explicit AI clause: NO
- Non-explicit predatory: YES
- Flagged keywords:
royalty-free,sublicense,sublicensable,derivative works,create derivative,transferable
sublicense, derivative works, create derivative unchanged from 2025-10-03.
Clause: royalty-free, transferable (cosmetic rewording — confirmed via diff against baseline, no substantive change)
If you believe that we have charged you in error, and subject to applicable laws and regulations: * you must contact us within 30 days of the date of the relevant charge; and * no refunds will be given for any erroneous charges after such a 30-day period. We may process payments from you in WeChat via a third-party service, and we may provide your relevant Information to such third parties to process your payments. You agree to comply with that relevant third-party’s terms and conditions in relation to the payment processing service, as further set out in the “Third-Party Content and Services” section below. 6. YOUR CONTENT ---------------- When you submit, upload, transmit or display any data, information, media or other content in connection with your use of WeChat (“Your Content”), you understand and agree that: * you will continue to own and be responsible for Your Content; * we will not sell Your Content to any third-party; * you are giving us and our affiliate companies a perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use Your Content (with no fees or charges payable by us to you) for the purposes of providing, promoting, developing and trying to improve WeChat and our other services, including new services that we may provide in the future. All such use will, to the extent Your Content contains Personal Information, be in accordance with our WeChat Privacy Policy. As part of this licence, we and our affiliate companies may, subject to the WeChat Privacy Policy, copy, reproduce, host, store, process, adapt, modify, translate, perform, distribute and publish Your Content worldwide in all media and by all distribution methods, including those that are developed in the future; * you grant other WeChat users a non-exclusive licence to access and use Your Content within WeChat, in accordance with these Terms and WeChat’s functionalities; * we may share Your Content with third parties that we work with to help provide, promote, develop and improve WeChat in accordance with the WeChat Privacy Policy; * we may use the name that you submit in connection with Your Content (whether that be your account name, real name or otherwise); and * you will comply with these Terms, including our WeChat Acceptable Use Policy, in your submission of Your Content. In addition, you agree that we and our affiliate companies (subject to these Terms, our WeChat Privacy Policy and applicable laws and regulations): * are allowed to retain and continue to use Your Content after you stop using WeChat; * may be required to retain or disclose Your Content: (a) in order to comply with applicable laws or regulations; (b) in order to comply with a court order, subpoena or other legal process; (c) in order to respond to a lawful request by a government authority, law enforcement agency or similar body; or (d) where we believe it is reasonably necessary to comply with applicable laws or regulations, in each case including (where applicable) orders, requests and other legal processes issued or made pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaty or similar lawful means. You may refer to our Law Enforcement Data Request Guidelines and Governmental Request Policy for further details on how we may retain or disclose Your Content; * may be required to retain or disclose Your Content in order to enforce these Terms or to protect any rights, property or safety of ours, our affiliate companies or other users of WeChat.
Clause: royalty-free, sublicensable (cosmetic rewording — confirmed via diff against baseline, no substantive change)
10. OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ------------------------------------- All intellectual property rights in or to WeChat and any WeChat Software (including any future updates, upgrades and new versions to all such WeChat Software), will continue to belong to us and our licensors. Except as expressly provided in these Terms, you have no right to use our intellectual property rights, including our trademarks or product names, logos, domain names or other distinctive brand features, without our prior written consent. Any comments or suggestions you may provide regarding WeChat are entirely voluntary and we will be free to use these comments and suggestions at our discretion (including using such comments to improve existing services or create new services) without any payment or other obligation to you. We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferrable, royalty-free and revocable right to use WeChat and any software from us as part of or in relation to your use of WeChat (any such software being the “WeChat Software”), solely in accordance with these Terms and subject to any other instructions as provided by us to you in relation to your use of WeChat and/or the WeChat Software from time to time. Please note that these terms may be supplemented by terms and conditions applicable to WeChat Software (or specific features within WeChat Software). You may not copy, modify, create derivative works, reverse compile, reverse engineer or extract source codes from WeChat Software, and you may not sell, distribute, redistribute or sublicense WeChat or the WeChat Software, except in each case to the extent that we may not prohibit you from doing so under applicable laws or regulations or you have our prior written consent to do so. Where applicable laws or regulations entitle you to reverse compile or extract source codes from WeChat Software, you will first contact us to request the information you need. We may from time to time provide updates to WeChat Software.