China’s new regulations on its tech giants are due to see the light of day on March 1. It aims to regulate the use of algorithms recommendation to users and Chinese laws.
After data, algorithms
China is continuing its work to regulate the digital sector started in 2021. After protecting user data, with the PIPL law, antitrust regulations, measures to limit IPOs abroad, Beijing is now looking into algorithms.
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The regulatory project aims to limit the power of algorithmic recommendations: they cannot promote content violating Chinese laws, must be transparent about their basic principles and objectives, and promote the protection of vulnerable audiences in the face of fraud. For news algorithms, licenses will be necessary and will be prohibited from promoting false information, or, in any case, that which will displease Beijing.
The law also aims to give back control to users over what they will see displayed in the feed of their favorite social networks, content aggregators or e-commerce site. They will be able to select and remove the tags used to offer suggestions or outright refuse to ‘submit’ to algorithmic recommendations.
These measures are accompanied by a duty of transparency of the platforms towards their users. They should inform them about the basic principles, objectives and mechanisms of the algorithm.
Alibaba and Tencent, the country’s two most powerful digital companies, will likely have to let Beijing regulators poke their noses into their precious algorithms to comply with the law. In the event of non-compliance, fines of 10,000 yuan, approximately 1,385 euros, to 100,000 yuan, 13,852 euros, are foreseen.
Can Beijing really enforce its regulations?
According to Ziyang Fan, head of digital trade at the World Economic Forum, this is one of the flaws in an ambitious text: the reluctance of companies to play the card of transparency on the real source of their value and the difficulties to regulators to understand what is in front of them.
Ziyang Fan explained to CNBC, who spotted the information, ” Since these rules are quite extensive and technical in some areas, it will be a learning process for both enforcement agencies and companies, who will have primary responsibility for complying with these rules. “.
Tech giants will likely look for a way around the new regulations to prevent their business model from really being affected. This could be of interest to their Western counterparts. With the Digital Services Act currently being finalized, the European Union also wishes to better control the algorithms of large platforms.