In a carefully worded riposte, China's most popular messaging app WeChat, has denied "storing chat histories".
It follows criticism from Chinese businessman Li Shufu, who recently said the firm "must be watching all our WeChats every day".
In response the Tencent-owned firm said suggestions that it was watching users was "pure misunderstanding".
All Chinese social media platforms are required to censor public posts deemed illegal by the government.
Mr Li is quoted in Chinese media reports as saying he believed Tencent monitored everyone's account.
The high-profile businessman owns Geely Holdings which in turn owns the Volvo car brand. It is one of China's largest automobile manufacturers and is one of the few not c
