run the lives of more than a billion people here everything from social media to gaming, maps to mobile paymentsl happeningn single ecosystems like wechat or alipay. how dependent are you on wechat? 100% 100%. 100%. 100%, usually every single day usually anything that the government has bought, they created another version for chinese people to fit their needs. reporter: but that era is over. china s government now cracking down with new regulations on once untouchable tech titans, reasserting state control over the industry and its user data. they genuinely do want to curb the power of some of these companies who create what they believe is a safer and more trustworthy, clean internet ecosystem. reporter: it is a global trend in the u.s. critics of big tech are also pushing for new regulations around social media