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Low reported severity Media Coverage

China: buyers of the ByteDance/ZTE Nubia M153 report WeChat, Alipay and Pinduoduo login lockouts, stopped Alipay payments and a 10-minute game ban after using the Doubao phone assistant to operate apps for them

ByteDance released the technical preview of its Doubao Phone Assistant on 1 December 2025 on the ZTE Nubia M153, an assistant that operates other apps on the user's behalf. On 3 December, 36Kr reports that users in the Nubia M153 user group said WeChat quit unexpectedly and could not be logged in again after they used the assistant to send messages and red envelopes, and The Paper (via Wallstreetcn) reports that users confirmed WeChat crashes and login failures. 36Kr also reports users seeing an 'abnormal login environment' prompt on Alipay, Alipay purchase tasks stopped midway, a 10-minute ban from a mobile game after the assistant played for a user, and Pinduoduo accounts that could not log in on the phone after the assistant was used to browse videos for coins. WeChat told The Paper it took no special action and that existing risk controls may have been triggered. ByteDance took the assistant's WeChat operation offline, said blocked WeChat accounts would be unblocked one by one, and, according to Nikkei Asia as relayed by Business Standard on 8 December, announced a temporary suspension of gaming, banking and online payment functions. The reports rest on user statements relayed by media, and the number of affected users is not stated.

AI system
Doubao Phone Assistant
ByteDance
Occurred
3 Dec 2025
Reported
3 December 2025
Event location
China
What the AI did
Acted on the person’s behalf
Reported harm
Functional Impairment
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Everyday life · Finance
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources
6 claims: 6 reported. 5 open questions
People reported harmed
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

AI system as recorded: Doubao Phone Assistant (ByteDance), an agentic assistant with system-level permissions that operates other apps on the Nubia M153 phone by simulating touches

What Happened

The Doubao Phone Assistant was released as a technical preview on 1 December 2025 on the Nubia M153, made with ZTE, with full automation of app operations as its selling point. On the morning of 3 December, 36Kr reports, users in the phone's user group said WeChat quit unexpectedly and could not be logged in again after they used the assistant for tasks such as sending messages and red envelopes. The Paper reports the same problem and says several users confirmed it to its reporters. By that evening, 36Kr says, users also reported an 'abnormal login environment' prompt on Alipay and inability to log in or pay, and Alipay stopping some purchase tasks midway when Alipay judged the payment environment to be a security risk. One user was reportedly banned from a mobile game for 10 minutes after having the assistant play, and other users reportedly could not log in to Pinduoduo on the phone after using the assistant to browse videos for coins. WeChat's representative said no special action had been taken and existing risk controls may have been triggered. The mechanism (app-side risk control reacting to the assistant's automated operation) is the platforms' and the media's explanation and no platform confirmed it as a decision about the assistant in particular. The assistant's WeChat operation was taken offline the same day (36Kr) and blocked accounts were to be unblocked in turn. Later reporting (Business Standard/Nikkei) says banking, WeChat, Taobao and Alipay restricted the assistant and ByteDance announced a temporary suspension of gaming, banking and online payment functions.

Reported harm

Users say WeChat, Alipay and Pinduoduo logins failed on their phones after the Doubao Phone Assistant operated the apps for them, Alipay stopped some purchase tasks midway and one user was banned from a game for 10 minutes; ByteDance told the user group blocked WeChat accounts would be unblocked one by one (36Kr, The Paper; user statements, number not stated).

Outcome

Ongoing

36Kr quotes the Doubao Phone Assistant team telling the Nubia M153 user group that WeChat operation in the assistant's phone-operating modes had been taken offline and that blocked WeChat accounts would be unblocked one by one. Business Standard (relaying Nikkei Asia) reports that ByteDance announced through Doubao's official WeChat account a temporary suspension of gaming, banking and online payment functions. WeChat told The Paper it took no special action. The apps involved described the restrictions as standard security protocols (Business Standard). Whether every blocked account was restored is not reported in the inspected sources.

What remains unknown

  • How many users had accounts blocked or payments stopped.
  • Whether all blocked WeChat accounts were restored and how long each lockout lasted.
  • Whether the platforms' risk controls acted on the assistant's automated operation specifically. WeChat and the other apps attribute the blocks to existing security controls without confirming this.
  • The Nikkei Asia, SCMP, Tech in Asia and Gizmochina articles were not readable and were not cited.
  • The Longbridge copy of The Paper item shows a login notice for additional characters after the visible text; only the visible text was read.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. 36Kr and The Paper describe the failures as following the users' use of the Doubao Phone Assistant to operate apps, and ByteDance took the assistant's WeChat operation offline in response. The platforms attribute the blocks to existing risk controls, and no platform confirmed a decision aimed at the assistant specifically.

6 claims: 6 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported On 3 December 2025 users of the Nubia M153 reported that WeChat quit unexpectedly and could not be logged in again after they used the Doubao Phone Assistant for operations such as sending messages and red envelopes.

Causal attribution. User reports; WeChat said existing security risk controls may have been triggered and took no special action.

  • eu.36kr.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    users continuously reported that after performing daily operations such as sending WeChat messages and red envelopes using the Doubao Phone Assistant, WeChat would unexpectedly quit and could not be logged in again.
  • longbridge.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    multiple netizens expressed on social media that users operating tasks with Doubao Phone Assistant on the Nubia M153 encountered issues where WeChat would crash or even fail to log in.
  • longbridge.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Several users of Doubao Phone confirmed the authenticity of this news to reporters.
  • longbridge.com(opens in new tab) context · English
    "There are no special actions; it may have triggered existing security risk control measures."
Reported ByteDance took the assistant's WeChat operation offline on 3 December and told the user group that blocked WeChat accounts would be unblocked one by one.

Causal attribution. Statement to the Nubia M153 user group as quoted by 36Kr; not confirmed by a second source.

  • eu.36kr.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The ability to operate WeChat in the phone - operating/phone - operating pro mode of the Doubao Phone Assistant has been taken offline
  • eu.36kr.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    the WeChat accounts that were blocked from logging in on the Nubia M153 will be unblocked one by one.
  • eu.36kr.com(opens in new tab) context · English
    the Doubao Phone Assistant issued a statement, only stating that there was no hacking behavior during its autonomous operation of WeChat.
  • longbridge.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    the phone operation function of Doubao Assistant no longer supports operating WeChat
Reported On the evening of 3 December users reported an 'abnormal login environment' prompt on Alipay and inability to log in or pay, and some users reported Alipay stopping a purchase task midway at the payment step.

Causal attribution. User reports relayed by 36Kr; Alipay's own explanation is not quoted in the inspected sources.

  • eu.36kr.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    not only WeChat, but also users reported that other apps such as Alipay showed a prompt of "abnormal login environment" and they were unable to log in or complete payment.
  • eu.36kr.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    when some people used the Doubao Phone Assistant to open a shopping platform and complete a purchase, when it came to manually entering the payment password, Alipay judged that there was a security risk in the payment environment and stopped the task midway
Reported Users reported that after having the assistant play a mobile game for them one was judged to have used cheats and banned for 10 minutes, and that using the assistant to browse Pinduoduo videos for coins left some accounts unable to log in on the phone.

Causal attribution. User reports relayed by 36Kr; the game and Pinduoduo operators are not quoted.

Reported Banking apps, WeChat, Taobao and Alipay were reported to have blocked the assistant, the apps described the restrictions as standard security protocols, and ByteDance announced a temporary suspension of gaming, banking and online payment functions.

Causal attribution. Nikkei Asia as relayed by Business Standard.

  • business-standard.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Soon after launch, users reported that Doubao was blocked by several major apps, including banking platforms, Tencent’s WeChat, Alibaba’s Taobao and Ant Group’s Alipay. These companies said the restrictions stemmed from standard security protocols.
  • business-standard.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    ByteDance announced on Doubao’s official WeChat account that it would temporarily suspend several AI functions, including gaming, banking and online payment features.
Reported The Doubao Phone Assistant technical preview was released on 1 December 2025 on the Nubia M153 made with ZTE.

Causal attribution. Not applicable (release date context).

Sources

3 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Full body read by curl on 2026-09-29. It is a 36Kr English republication of an article by the WeChat account 'Power Plant' (author named in the source). The underlying user statements are not independently inspected. Applies to s1.

Longbridge copy of a Wallstreetcn item (3 December 2025) that relays The Paper's reporting; read by curl on 2026-09-29. The item begins with an automatic AI summary, which is not cited. The Longbridge page shows a login notice ('unlock 6,954 characters') after the visible text; the visible text was read and is what is cited. Applies to s2.

Full body read by curl on 2026-09-29. It reports Nikkei Asia's article; the Nikkei page itself was not readable. Applies to s3.

Event countries: China. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

Business Standard (relaying Nikkei) places the dispute among 'China's biggest technology companies' and 36Kr prices the phone in yuan. Countries of residence of the affected users are not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: Published as a concrete bounded series in which users of an agentic phone assistant report app login lockouts, stopped Alipay purchase tasks and a game ban after the assistant operated apps for them. The account rests on user statements relayed by media, the number of affected users is unknown, and the platforms attribute the blocks to routine risk controls.

People described

Buyers of the Nubia M153 who used the Doubao Phone Assistant, reported in the user group and on social media (not named)

People reported harmed in this case

Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

The inspected sources say 'users' or 'several users' reported problems and describe individual users (one game ban, some Pinduoduo and Alipay cases) without a count. Numeric zeros are placeholders. The 30,000 units sold (Nikkei via Business Standard) are not a harmed count.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#doubao#bytedance#agentic-phone#account-lockout#china

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). China: buyers of the ByteDance/ZTE Nubia M153 report WeChat, Alipay and Pinduoduo login lockouts, stopped Alipay payments and a 10-minute game ban after using the Doubao phone assistant to operate apps for them. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-china-bytedance-doubao-phone-assistant-app-lockouts

BibTeX

@misc{2025_china_bytedance_doubao_phone_assistant_app_lockouts,
  title = {China: buyers of the ByteDance/ZTE Nubia M153 report WeChat, Alipay and Pinduoduo login lockouts, stopped Alipay payments and a 10-minute game ban after using the Doubao phone assistant to operate apps for them},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-china-bytedance-doubao-phone-assistant-app-lockouts}
}

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