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How TikTok censors videos that do not please Beijing
- gtirloni 7y agoBeijing ByteDance Technology Co Ltd. is a Chinese Internet technology company operating several machine learning-enabled content platforms, headquartered in Beijing. It was founded by Zhang Yiming in 2012. What's to be surprised about exactly? This sort of thing is the norm.
- philipov 7y agoIt's not about surprise, it's about spreading awareness, and not allowing this kind of behavior to be normalized. If you think news is only worth spreading if it's a surprise, then you've been totally taken in by the shock-mongerers and by those who want this kind of behavior to be ignored, allowed, and encouraged.
- gtirloni 7y agoI think the HN crowd is well aware.
- big_chungus 7y agoThe linked publication is The Guardian, which has much wider readership than HN.
- dragonelite 7y agoWe already have social media platforms for 20+ years. Everybody says they don't want to be tracked when asked, but also a lot/majority don't care if they can stay in touch with their families or get those social media dopamine shots(likes and stuff)
- ASalazarMX 7y ago> Beijing ByteDance Technology [..] is a Chinese [..] company [..] headquartered in Beijing. Oh wow. Shocking revelations. I guess it's just informative, saving inquisitive readers a web search.
- pmarreck 7y agoIncentivizing free speech in a clever way!
- Leary 7y agoI hate companies that abide by the ideological positions of the country they're from. Hopefully the US can pass a law that bans the use of any social media app that harms Freedom of Speech through the insidious use of "Community Guidelines"
- maest 7y agoHonest question, is this supposed to be written tongue in cheek? I can't convince myself whether it is or it isn't.
- WaxProlix 7y agoPoe's law is going to become so relevant that it's no longer relevant anymore. We live in a post-irony society.
- mc32 7y agoI think they’re serious but obviously poking fun at the incongruence where we castigate Chinese apps but are fine having domestic companies engage in similar behavior except it's not at the behest of the gov.
- Leary 7y agoI personally think all speech should be free except those that advocate violence or break the law.
- meddlepal 7y ago> advocate violence or break the law Well I guess so much for the French or American Revolutions.
- geowwy 7y ago> except not at the behest of the gov Not so sure about that. Silicon Valley has some crazy ties to American intelligence agencies.
- dang 7y agoUrl changed from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49826155 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49826155, which points to this.
- nyolfen 7y agoas we all know, it's a private platform and they have no obligation to host speech that violates their guidelines. nothing to see here.
- xvector 7y agoBeing a private platform does not absolve you of social responsibility. When you take on the role of a public forum or place of communication, you also take on some social responsibility, whether you like it or not. Whether you choose to ignore it with carefully crafted "Community Guidelines"-based legalese or you choose to respect and acknowledge it, it doesn't change the fact that the responsibility exists.
- zamadatix 7y agoThe problem with this kind of statement is "social responsibility" isn't one thing. To their social group this is what being socially responsible is. To your/my social group it isn't. Saying "you have a social responsibility to not do that" is only one step better than arguing "I don't think you should do that" as a reason someone shouldn't do something.
- xvector 7y agoI hate to resort to an extreme example, but Nazis thought they were being socially responsible. They obviously were not. Regardless, I am pretty sure that TikTok's developers are aware that what they are doing is simply preserving the state's iron grip over those that dare challenge it. Just because they are fine with it doesn't make it OK.
- linkregister 7y agoThe newsworthy part of this story is that the censorship is extending beyond Chinese users. The journalists based in England were unable to find trending topics on Hong Kong. That is unprecedented for other popular social media platforms outside of China.
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- avocado4 7y agoAlso if you check the AndroidManifest.xml of TikTok app you'll see they are tracking persistent device identifiers coupled with phone #. Then if you uninstall TikTok you'll still have a bunch of their files in shared space that other Chinese apps can pick up were you to install them, presumably so they can track you even if you uninstall the app.
- vymague 7y agoIs this something we can report? Or is it allowed in Android?
- avocado4 7y agoIt's a bad practice according to Google, but not forbidden. https://developer.android.com/training/articles/user-data-ids https://developer.android.com/training/articles/user-data-id...
- mtgx 7y agoI believe there were some slight restrictions in Android 10, but probably nowhere near enough (the platform is owned by a tracking company after all): https://developer.android.com/about/versions/10/privacy/changes#data-ids https://developer.android.com/about/versions/10/privacy/chan... Check this out: https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/09/25/50-ways-to-leak-your-data/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/09/25/50-ways-to-leak-your-dat...
- chii 7y agoIs there a way to prevent an app from leaking data put like this, e.g, some kind of sandbox disk where files written with one app cannot be accessed by another app (until the user allows it - like photo sharing etc)?
- inetknght 7y agoA container, for example?
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- xvector 7y agoTikTok's developers should be ashamed of themselves. I have nothing but derision for employees who take part in implementing something so obviously horrible but do not make an attempt to move out of their job or even acknowledge what they are doing wrong.
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- baby 7y agoIn China you either comply and have a chance to build a company or have a job somewhere, or you don’t and... you don’t have a career.
- vymague 7y agoIt seems they are just motivating the smart people to leave the country.
- bubblesorting 7y agoPunch `China exit ban` into your favorite search engine.
- jacobush 7y agoIt's looking more and more like a "bug fixed" Soviet empire.
- taneq 7y agoFrom a quick web search, these seem to be more about foreign nationals being detained in China for political reasons or to compel compliance. Not great, but also not really relevant to what I thought we were talking about (ie. Chinese businesses having to make concessions to the government in order to operate).
- sushid 7y agoTheir solution to brain drain from foreign educated students in the 90s was in fact to send even more students to the States. It’s actually worked very well for them as now they have a huge number coming back after studying abroad. And as our immigration policy becomes more restrictive, China will be getting even more of their best and brightest right back.
- dirtyid 7y agoAnother incredibly vague investigation. Description of leaked guideline basically amounts to no divisive politics. Guardian yellow peril narrative: "TikTok, is advancing Chinese foreign policy aims abroad through the app". What I see from the guidelines: TikTok is an app designed for kids and No Politics policies make the app friendly for kids, which is preferable to the Youtube radicalization treadmill model. IMO, the internet needs a different standards for children. Sometimes I think 90% of fights online are some variation of anonymous kids screaming at kids, adults screaming adults but is actually a kid with dumb naive hot takes. This is the right policy of kid oriented apps like TikTok and Youtube kids IMO. Not broader social media like twitter, facebook or weibo. Original allegations by Guardian [1]. >In every case, they are placed in a context designed to make the rules seem general purpose, rather than specific exceptions. A ban on criticism of China’s socialist system, for instance, comes under a general ban of “criticism/attack towards policies, social rules of any country, such as constitutional monarchy, monarchy, parliamentary system, separation of powers, socialism system, etc”. >Another ban covers “demonisation or distortion of local or other countries’ history such as May 1998 riots of Indonesia, Cambodian genocide, Tiananmen Square incidents”. >A more general purpose rule bans “highly controversial topics, such as separatism, religion sects conflicts, conflicts between ethnic groups, for instance exaggerating the Islamic sects conflicts, inciting the independence of Northern Ireland, Republic of Chechnya, Tibet and Taiwan and exaggerating the ethnic conflict between black and white”. TikTok claims these are deprecated guidelines: >The old guidelines in question are outdated and no longer in use. Today we take localised approaches, including local moderators, local content and moderation policies, local refinement of global policies, and more. We also consult with a number of independent local committees and are working to scale this at a global level, including forming an independent committee of leading industry organisations and experts to continually assess these policies. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...
- xvector 7y ago> TikTok is an app designed for kids and No Politics policies make the app friendly for kids, which is preferable to the Youtube radicalization treadmill model. I think this is a false dichotomy. You are mentioning two companies that play this game in bad faith. There is a middle-ground.
- Leary 7y agoHow is this implemented technically? Does TikTok know what every video is saying through speech recognition? What if I unfurl a Free Tibet flag in my video (visual only)
- tpmx 7y ago"... instructs its moderators to censor videos that mention ..."
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- sunkenvicar 7y agoThanks for this. App deleted because China is not a reliable place to do business.
- sunkenvicar 7y agoThis comment used to have a lot of points. It appears Fentanyl China found the downvote button.
- dang 7y agoPlease keep nationalistic flamebait off HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sunkenvicar 7y agoYou are hallucinating nationalism where there is none. China is untrustworthy because they routinely break business deals. They violate trade agreements: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fCAut_Gr-3E https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fCAut_Gr-3E They steal our IP: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-systematically-pries-technology-from-u-s-companies-1537972066 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-systematically-pries-... They are waging war against us with Fentanyl: https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-new-safeguards-fentanyl-trafficking-is-still-a-problem-11566597494 https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-new-safeguards-fentanyl... Chinese Fentanyl has killed hundreds of thousands of North Americans in the Third Opium War. It’s a no-brainer to pivot away from China.
- United857 7y agoThe article doesn't mention a key point: The TikTok that's available internationally is a completely separate service instance than Douyin (the Chinese version). Content/users from one aren't accessible on the other.
- takumo 7y agoIt doesn't mention it because it isn't really relevant. The international app is still being censored according to the same rules as the app in China. It still prohibits users from discussing topics the CCP doesn't want brought up. (e.g. Tiananman Square, Falun Gong, organ harvesting, and Xinjiang) The main differences are that outside of China you're not bound by their laws requiring users to sign up using their legal name and provide identification to prove as such. In addition to which people aren't being disappeared or arrested for their posts.
- aaron_m04 7y ago> The main differences are [...] In addition to which people aren't being disappeared or arrested for their posts. I would not recommend talking about these subjects with the international app outside China and then going to China.
- chvid 7y agoOr maybe TikTok just want their platform to be filled with cheerful silly jokes and 10 second dance moves? And not politics, religious stuff or anti this and that ... Maybe it is even a businesss strategy and not something the CCP actually has forced upon them.
- bigpumpkin 7y agoWhich is quite a contrast from Snapchat's current environment, where you can select political filters for your snaps.
- Craighead 7y agoor maybe posting simple things like any reference to a certain quadrilateral in online games like league of legends is enough for any Chinese player to be removed from the game games are fun and completive things arent they? there shouldn't be any politics around them, yet, China decides to censor references to a certain quadrilateral by removing players from a game
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- FussyZeus 7y agoI'd be over the moon if Twitter banned political discussion. No matter what side you're on, if any, you have to acknowledge that having discussions in 240 character bites is not going to convince anybody of anything. The only thing Twitter is really good at is letting people dunk on other people and showing their followers how smart they are. There's no nuance and no motive to actually persuade others, it's just basically a bar fight over the Internet.
- potatofarmer45 7y agoThe issue here is the spread of Chinese Censorship beyond China. With WeChat, so far, users outside of China are not subjected to the same level of censorship when communicating with other non-Chinese users. This is different because it subjects all users to a Chinese "standard" which basically means any conspiracy crap about how evil America is and typical whataboutism videos can be prioritized via "algorithms" while a whole range of "sensitive" issues can be blocked. It gives the Chinese government tools that slowly enable it to "guide" discussions online. What is interesting about TikTok is that unlike WeChat, it seems to have users beyond the Chinese diaspora which gives Beijing far more "soft power" influence to craft a "positive image of China"
- Fjolsvith 7y agoSame could be said for other venues of online expression, including the current one.
- EastSmith 7y agoAlgorithmic sorting / curated content has no place in services like TikTok, Twitter, Facebook. If I subscribe to someone I want to see all the content. I've been fighting with twitter switching to curated content for some time now, and finally recently Twitter stopped switching me back to curated ordering.
- aembleton 7y agoBut in what order? If it is just by time stamp that will give you a lot of noise to wade through. Use an app like talon if you want twitter ordered by time.