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Unwitting users of WeChat aid the app’s blacklisting of sensitive images
- altmind 7y agoabbridged: hash of an image, ocr to detect forbidden phrases, manual post-fact clsasification by contractors and: "Image filtering only occurred when at least one of the chat participants had an account registered to a mainland Chinese number"
- acqq 7y agoAfter reading the article it seems to me that, contrary to the title, the users don't do anything to actively "aid" the built-in blacklisting in the app?
- pteraspidomorph 7y agoWell, that's the meaning of "unwitting". I think the article is only saying that tencent collect (information on) the pictures shared by users through the service.
- acqq 7y ago> that's the meaning of "unwitting". No: they don‘t aid, period. They just use the service which uses blacklist technologies. That‘s all I see there.
- crusty 7y agoIf the image classification for censorship is applied to all images sent worldwide, but only China-based accounts get censored, then just by using the app among non-China-registered accounts to share images that would be sensitive in China, uncensored users are unwittingly helping to build the censored image database before users in China ever try to share the material.
- acqq 7y agoBy that logic every internet user everywhere is “helping“ because wechat can train their algorithms on any public picture “before”. It‘s just a false claim that the “users” are helping.
- jonplackett 7y agoStill not clear how users are 'helping' exactly? Seems like they just have their chats filtered. What am I missing? This is a frustrating article to read. Every sentence and paragraph from the start to about 3/4 down just repeats the same information as is in the headline over and over again in a different format.
- hyayz 7y agoSCMP. An anti-China rag.
- helloindia 7y agoIt's owned by Jack Ma. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1937256/alibabas-jack-ma-reveals-why-he-bought-south-china-morning-post https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1937256/alib...
- yorwba 7y agoThe more common accusation is that they're too "pro-Beijing": https://hn.algolia.com/?query=SCMP%20pro-Beijing&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=SCMP%20pro-Beijing&type=commen... Seems like they're doing something right with their reporting if both "pro-China" and "anti-China" camps believe them to be allied with the enemy.
- heraclius 7y agoI don’t think that there is much evidence of being excessively against China; I remember one incident suggesting the opposite.¹ There are certainly more establishment voices in the opinion pages than elsewhere, but they are on the liberal side of the establishment camp; the editor, for example, has attacked the government’s intransigence in the handling of the extradition bill, but is generally pro-establishment. 1. http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4608&Itemid=173 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&tas...
- 7y ago
- adamleo 7y agoUsers don't do anything because they don't care. Chinese people have the mentality that makes them think, I didn't do anything wrong so what am I afraid of?
- Rainymood 7y agoGood job on generalizing more than 1 billion people in one fell swoop, i.e. thrice the population of the US.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoIt's obviously a generalization. Of course there's edge cases where it doesn't apply and groups who it applies to less. That's part of the nature of generalizations. They're not meant to be comprehensive. Complaining that it ignores the nuance is like complaining a knife makes a bad spoon.
- adrianN 7y agoThe same mentality can be seen in the West too.
- maxheadroom 7y ago>The same mentality can be seen in the West too. Most demonstrated, IMPE, by the phrase, "You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing hide."