Bilibili Denies Excessive Work After Death Revives ‘996’ Debate
- Male employee is the latest fatality at Chinese tech firms
- Social media posts allege the worker died from overwork
The Bilibili website.
Photographer: Roy Liu/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Bilibili Inc. denied that it overworked an employee who died during the Chinese New Year holiday, reigniting a debate over the culture of prolonged hours that persists within China’s tech companies.
The country’s largest anime-focused streaming site confirmed that a content moderator, who joined in May 2020, died on Friday, according to an internal memo on Monday shared with Bloomberg News. The male staffer was suddenly rushed to the hospital on the afternoon of Feb. 4 from his home and succumbed to a brain hemorrhage later that evening.