On February 6, Alibaba's Qwen service launched a "Spring Festival 3 Billion Freebies" campaign, distributing free milk tea vouchers. Some users calculated that a family of six participating in the promotion could earn a no-minimum-spend voucher worth 275 yuan within five minutes. If used to order lemon tea from Mixue Bingcheng, this would cover the cost of 84 cups.

Following the campaign's launch, many users reported noticeable lagging issues with Qwen. The "Qwen Treats" page became unclickable, displaying a message indicating a system error and prompting users to try again later. Some users noted that while the promotional page was affected, the Q&A functionality remained operational.

On the same day, Alibaba's stock on the Hong Kong exchange opened lower and continued to decline. By 10:39 AM, the share price had dropped over 3% to HK$154.5. Tencent Holdings and Baidu Group also saw declines, both falling more than 1%.

It is noteworthy that, following WeChat's previous blocking of Tencent's Yuanbao and Baidu's Wenxin Assistant, Qwen's promotional link has also been restricted on WeChat. The platform displays a message stating that the webpage contains content that induces or misleads users to download or redirect, requiring access via a third-party browser. Additionally, when some users attempt to share the Qwen campaign with WeChat contacts, the app automatically switches to a copy-and-paste format.

Previously, regarding the blocking of Yuanbao's red packet links, WeChat officials stated that the action was taken to curb excessive marketing and诱导性分享 during the Spring Festival period, aiming to maintain a positive user experience. In essence, Yuanbao's campaign violated WeChat's ecosystem rules by incentivizing users to share. Yuanbao later adjusted its sharing mechanism to a "password-based red packet" format.

(Note: This content is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Investors should proceed at their own risk.)