{"id":226616,"date":"2020-12-22T16:26:39","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T00:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=226616"},"modified":"2022-09-09T18:21:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T01:21:28","slug":"government-partners-with-private-corporations-to-monitor-chinas-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2020\/12\/government-partners-with-private-corporations-to-monitor-chinas-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Government Partners With Private Corporations To Monitor China’s Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

New investigations by ChinaFile and The New York Times reveal the complexities of the vast and diffuse organs tasked by the Chinese state with understanding (and manipulating) online public opinion. The Great Firewall<\/a>, the \u201cFifty Cent Party<\/a>,\u201d and CDT\u2019s \u201cDirectives From the Ministry of Truth<\/a>\u201d are well known examples of the Chinese government\u2019s efforts to control the internet. The investigations by ChinaFile and The Times show that public-private partnerships built on sophisticated software programs are the new frontier of internet control in China.<\/p>\n

Jessica Batke and Mareike Ohlberg\u2019s ChinaFile investigation used government procurement documents to show that the CCP has outsourced online content moderation and analysis to private companies that specialize in identifying \u201cpublic opinion\u201d<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Party hopes to harness the commercial sector\u2019s advances in big data and machine learning to understand what Chinese citizens think, respond adequately to key concerns, and siphon away overly critical sentiment\u2014all without members of the public seeing their compatriots\u2019 complaints. The goal is to deliver a minimum standard of responsive governance while simultaneously preempting the very feedback that could help officials govern more effectively. For-profit companies are actively assisting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as it works to eliminate one of the main threats to its survival: how people feel about, and talk about, the power of the regime itself.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] The emergence of the public opinion service sector offers a glimpse of what techno-authoritarianism (an oft-cited but under-explained phrase) might actually look like in practice in China: the Party-state\u2019s use of, and reliance on, private technology companies to manage the volatile interaction between ideas, speech, and society. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ChinaFile report alleges that surveillance now involves the algorithmic monitoring of influential accounts and the deployment of software systems that are able to drown negative news in a deluge of likes by boosting comments that promote government-friendly narratives<\/strong><\/a>. Yet the report makes clear that China\u2019s public opinion management systems are not run by a centrally directed monolith but rather a hodgepodge collection of government agencies hungry for the information that private companies claim to provide. Batke and Ohlberg explain:<\/p>\n

Which Party or state institutions find themselves needing for-profit help to track what people are saying online? Propaganda departments\u2014and their close cousins, online news centers and information centers\u2014show up the most often among awarded bid notices, followed by notices from various public security organs. But beyond these obvious buyers, a truly motley set of agencies look for outside help to strengthen their Internet monitoring. Local courts and prosecutors\u2019 offices, hospitals, tax offices, universities, land and resources bureaus, and even the Export-Import Bank of China all purchased public opinion monitoring systems of some type between 2007 and August 2020. These buyers are most interested in their own parochial concerns, namely, the public\u2019s opinions of them and of the latest news relating to their work. The Institute of Information on Traditional Chinese Medicine at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, for example, wanted to conduct round-the-clock monitoring of information related to the safety of traditional Chinese medicine. In Lanzhou city in Gansu province, the Traffic Police sought \u201cseamless 24-hour monitoring of the entire Internet\u201d for online chatter mentioning their office. The Shenzhen General Border Inspection Station solicited a system that would scour Hong Kong and Taiwanese media for \u201cnegative public opinion\u201d related to the station.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Officials know they cannot control every single errant Internet post. \u201cThe government is targeting people based on their influence and based on the social space they are inhabiting,\u201d says The London School of Economics\u2019 Miller. \u201cIt has to prioritize because it has limited resources. . . Instead of focusing on 50,000 retweets, you can focus on the 500 people that have been retweeted a lot, and that\u2019s the way of controlling the message.\u201d The Huaqiao University School of Journalism and Communication, in soliciting bidders for a new \u201cOverseas Chinese New Media Public Opinion Monitoring Service,\u201d outlined its collection requirements for Weibo, Facebook, and Twitter: \u201canalyze the distribution chain of news, discover public opinion tipping points and opinion leaders, and provide data about posts that have been transmitted multiple times.\u201d A number of procurement notices evinced authorities\u2019 interest in tracking certain individuals\u2019 posts, including those of \u201copinion leaders.\u201d The Beijing Federation of Trade Unions wanted 24-hour monitoring of particular netizens to \u201cgrasp the trend of how their speech disseminates.\u201d This kind of tracking can happen in bulk, as with the Tianjin Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which hoped to watch \u201c5,000 sensitive Weibo accounts.\u201d [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Interestingly there was at least one foreign supplier: The British co Autonomy had devised a public-opinion monitoring system for the China market in 2006 and had takers in government. HP bought Autonomy in 2011 (I don't know what became of this but Autonomy imploded as a biz)<\/p>\n

— Gady Epstein (@gadyepstein) December 21, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n