China’s largest anime-focused streaming site Bilibili Inc has denied that it overworked an employee who died during the Chinese New Year holiday.
Bilibili confirmed that a content moderator, who joined in May 2020, died on Friday.
Bloomberg News reports that 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.
In response to online posts alleging that the man had died of overwork, the company claimed that he didn’t work overtime in the week before his death and that his hours ran between 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The statement followed a growing outcry on Chinese social media over the death, with Bilibili becoming one of the top trending topics on the Twitter-like Weibo.
While tech billionaires such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma have endorsed the culture of “996” working hours — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, with added overtime — as necessary in a competitive industry, there has been growing pushback in recent years and China’s top court issued its most detailed warning last year that the practice is illegal.
A hashtag alleging that the man had died from overwork was read more than 230 million times on Weibo.