How TikTok Censors Videos That Do Not Please Beijing (theguardian.com) 23
According to leaked documents revealed by the Guardian, TikTok instructs its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong. "The documents [...] lay out how ByteDance, the Beijing-headquartered technology company that owns TikTok, is advancing Chinese foreign policy aims abroad through the app," writes Alex Hern for the Guardian. From the report: The guidelines divide banned material into two categories: some content is marked as a "violation," which sees it deleted from the site entirely, and can lead to a user being banned from the service. But lesser infringements are marked as "visible to self," which leaves the content up but limits its distribution through TikTok's algorithmically-curated feed. This latter enforcement technique means that it can be unclear to users whether they have posted infringing content, or if their post simply has not been deemed compelling enough to be shared widely by the notoriously unpredictable algorithm.
The bulk of the guidelines covering China are contained in a section governing "hate speech and religion." 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 "demonization 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." All the above violations result in posts being marked "visible to self." But posts promoting Falun Gong are marked as a "violation," since the organization is categorized as a "group promoting suicide," alongside the Aum cult that used sarin to launch terrorist attacks on the Tokyo Metro in 1995 and "Momo group," a hoax conspiracy that went viral earlier this year. ByteDance said in a statement that the version of the documents that the Guardian obtained was retired in May, and that the current guidelines do not reference specific countries or issues.
The bulk of the guidelines covering China are contained in a section governing "hate speech and religion." 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 "demonization 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." All the above violations result in posts being marked "visible to self." But posts promoting Falun Gong are marked as a "violation," since the organization is categorized as a "group promoting suicide," alongside the Aum cult that used sarin to launch terrorist attacks on the Tokyo Metro in 1995 and "Momo group," a hoax conspiracy that went viral earlier this year. ByteDance said in a statement that the version of the documents that the Guardian obtained was retired in May, and that the current guidelines do not reference specific countries or issues.
Re: (Score:1)
I guess that when you've been raised under an idiotic Communist system that creates weak minds and is intrinsically, inextricably linked to psychotic genocidal behavior, controversy can be pretty scary. And suicide probably looks pretty good, so there's that.
Actually, communism in China (at least as far as Marx or his students would recognise it) pretty much died by the time Mao did. What took its place under the new regime is certainly branded as communism, but owes much more to what Mussolini defined as corporatism, i.e., fascism. Everybody, especially in the leadership, is focused on two things: getting rich; and being seen as rich, powerful, and well-connected. Those aren't innovations of the PRC; anybody who's studied Chinese history of the last 3,500+ yea
They usually learn such things faster (Score:2)
But lesser infringements are marked as "visible to self," which leaves the content up but limits its distribution through TikTok's algorithmically-curated feed. This latter enforcement technique means that it can be unclear to users whether they have posted infringing content, or if their post simply has not been deemed compelling enough to be shared widely by the notoriously unpredictable algorithm.
So the Chinese finally discovered shadowbanning?
Re: (Score:2)
Even Chinese government censors can be subtle on occasion. In fact, they generally seem to be more subtle than their equivalents in the west these days.
Slashdot Rediscovers the Censorship Icon (Score:2)
https://slashdot.org/story/19/... [slashdot.org]
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
No, there isn't.
Limiting the proof (the video) while permitting only the propaganda (the commentary) is a deliberate attempt to hide the facts.
How long will it take you to save for retirement fifty cents at a time?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who is this "we"? To most Chinese, tianenmen is just a square, and they're not aware of anything important happening there. You literally could not be more wrong. Hiding the video absolutely is hiding the truth. We still have Holocaust deniers, remember? More evidence is better. There is no public interest in hiding things simply because they offend some people, only in preventing people from seeing them by accident during breakfast.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you seriously trying to convince us that the majority of Chinese have no idea of the incidents in Tienanmen square? Sorry, I don't buy that [washingtonpost.com]. Just because they're not allowed to talk about it in public doesn't mean they don't know exactly what happened there. In fact, given human nature, I'd say it almost guarantees it.
I'm not sure what your point about Holocaust deniers is except that it shows people can be pretty damn irrational when facts conflict with their own prejudices.
China bad, we good. (Score:3)
The bulk of the guidelines covering China are contained in a section governing "hate speech and religion." In every case, they are placed in a context designed to make the rules seem general purpose, rather than specific exceptions.
Uh huh. So just like a lot of the "hate speech" laws work out in Europe. I'm not suggesting that our censorship comes anywhere near the level of China's, but it does appear that those in favour of stricter censorship in Europe would like these rules to be drawn up and applied more or less in the same manner: generic rules that leave a lot of ground for interpretation, which are then applied selectively. And that scares the crap out of me.
We have already seen such a selection bias in the EU's agency for fighting fake news [euvsdisinfo.eu], which seems focused on anything that paints the Ukraine in a poor light or Russia in a good one. And they are spreading disinformation themselves [ft.com] in doing so.
Re: (Score:2)
That and the little fact that censorship in the west is getting worse (whether directly or by SJW-based crucification), seems to indicate that overall China may be doing better in individual freedoms long-term. No, I do not think they are doing well in that area in any way, but what happens in the west at this time and the direction things are going are extremely problematic.
No. China bad, we bad, everybody bad! (Score:2)
Please stop those silly false dochotomies. I can say China is a fucked up totalitarian monstrosity without saying that the US or EU or whatever isn't.
How do you people (on all "sides") even live with that binary thinking mental disorder?
In the other word... (Score:2)
Just like the Slashdot policy on Huawei [slashdot.org].
No problem. Nobody sane uses it anyway. (Score:1)
Users will just use something else of equivalent uselessness.
Ther users are just a couple of neglected kids anyway, that did not have proper friends and wanted to be in on a fake "trend" based on self-fulfilling prophecy circular logic popularity growth.
And I don't mean "not sane" in a derogatory manner. But in an analogous manner to "injured". So not to devalue them, but to say they need extra love and care by our society. To not fall for such cancer in the first place. ... at least in my time, they got so
US following the trend (Score:1)
Kinda like Slashdot huh (Score:1)