[HN Gopher] China has pioneered a law to empower people over alg...
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China has pioneered a law to empower people over algorithms?
Author : AlbertoRomGar
Score : 92 points
Date : 2022-04-13 10:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (onezero.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (onezero.medium.com)
| boppo1 wrote:
| This title is clearly some sort of propaganda. This from the
| country that flies drones around telling people to stay inside?
| GordonS wrote:
| The US has done some truly _terrible_ things too - but that
| doesn 't mean everything they do is evil, nor does it mean
| every American is evil.
|
| Consider that for the past 5-10 years we in the west have been
| _bombarded_ with anti-Chinese news stories, and "red danger"
| is reaching new, dizzying heights; propaganda works both ways.
| boppo1 wrote:
| I was not claiming the contrary.
| simne wrote:
| This is so typical soviet/communists lie, I can't believe, exists
| educated Western people who don't understand, how huge this lie.
|
| - Term "wellness" is so highly depend on context, that it will
| mean anything, what decide judge. - Depend on point of look, for
| wellness could decide to give somebody food/water or to kill him,
| so he will not agonize.
|
| On what I must agree, this classic totalitarian legislation, will
| have extremely long tail of consequences.
|
| For example, judge could decide, that for abstract wellness, bank
| algorithm should not account fees on officials accounts
| (including their relatives), or they could decide, that for
| officials accounts, 2*2=5.
| simne wrote:
| So I think, with this new legislation, China become real life
| implementation of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels
| helen___keller wrote:
| An overly cynical take.
|
| Like any country, China has a balance of power in internal
| politics.
|
| If we're talking about those at the top (e.g. Xi), there's
| really no need for this law to interpret 2+2=5; he's the
| dictator and already can take whatever he wants.
|
| For lower officials, maybe they want 2+2=5, but those above
| them want to keep them in check to make themselves look good,
| except in so far as the lower officials have something to offer
| in return. But even if that lower official is paying the upper
| official to look the other way, if the lower official pisses
| off too many people higher up the chain then there's no way to
| avoid the consequences.
|
| This is the game and balance of power as it exists today, and
| that doesn't change with some social media law.
|
| The main change here is giving CCP more tools to shape public
| discourse.
|
| you're correct that "wellness" can mean anything. If some app
| has too many posts criticizing Shanghai lockdown, tell the app
| it's not promoting wellness, fix it with algorithms or go to
| jail.
|
| In other words, a softer version of great firewall censorship:
| you are "allowed" to post on a topic, but maybe nobody will see
| your post because it's not promoting wellness
| manor wrote:
| "Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall actively
| disseminate positive energy, and promote the application of
| algorithms to be good."... Are free and fair elections "good"? Is
| one party rule the best guarantee for "positive energy"? This is
| so ridiculous coming from a non-democracy...
| civilized wrote:
| China doesn't have rule of law. This is like termites proposing a
| new structure for wooden home construction.
| trasz wrote:
| civilized wrote:
| In the USA we have due process rights so that the government
| can't just randomly disappear people for months [1] or
| forever [2]. Unfortunately some guilty people go free when
| the government fails to prosecute in respect of these rights,
| but it is the price we pay so that the rulers can't just
| suppress their crimes and destroy anyone they dislike.
|
| In China you can be the son of a powerful official, kill
| someone with your car in front of everyone, scream "Go ahead
| and sue me, my father is Li Gang!", and the government will
| indeed go to work to suppress witnesses to your misdeeds,
| even though the incident is already a viral meme on social
| media [3a]. But I guess you can give them credit for finally
| charging this kid who murdered someone with his car... 3
| months after the fact. [3b]
|
| But make sure not to compare Xi to Pooh-Bear, your future
| will not be bright! [4]
|
| [1] https://www.thecut.com/2022/02/the-disappearance-of-peng-
| shu...
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforced_disappearance#China
|
| [3a] https://globalvoices.org/2010/10/22/china-my-father-is-
| li-ga...
|
| [3b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Gang_incident
|
| [4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-
| win...
| trasz wrote:
| Here is how being wealthy works in US:
| https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/02/justice/delaware-du-
| pont-...
|
| There is a difference though: in China this is changing.
|
| As for the Winnie the Pooh urban legend: I guess you never
| asked yourself how is it possible that Shanghai Disneyland
| still features Winnie :-)
| civilized wrote:
| No, the difference is that in America, the news media
| report on these things which are horrible and
| embarrassing to our country, so that the people can know
| and fight to improve things. In China, everything
| embarrassing to the CCP is instantly censored to present
| a sanitized reality where all behavior displeasing to the
| CCP does not exist.
|
| Just like how most Russians think Russia is liberating
| Ukraine in a "special military operation" and the
| indiscriminately massacring of civilians is airbrushed
| away.
|
| Only criminals censor the media.
| trasz wrote:
| >No, the difference is that in America, the news media
| report on these things which are horrible and
| embarrassing to our country
|
| And nothing changes. Convinced child rapist was let free
| because he was wealthy and "wouldn't feel good in
| prison". Do you think this was followed by some reform to
| make sure it doesn't happen again?
|
| >In China, everything embarrassing to the CCP is
| instantly censored
|
| This is obviously false. Talk to someone from China
| perhaps, or take a look at their media?
|
| >Only criminals censor the media.
|
| Have you ever heard about gag orders?
| culi wrote:
| Anybody who's ever worked with houseless folks will laugh
| at the idea that cops can't just pick people up and hold
| them without any repercussions. In the US you need to be of
| the right social standing to actually be afforded those
| "rights".
|
| Due process has always been a myth in US history for people
| who aren't of a certain privileged status. For example, the
| whole concept of "citizen's arrest" was created in order to
| let non-cop white people detain black people
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/26380304
| civilized wrote:
| Unfortunately the most marginalized people in any society
| are often treated badly. That's different from a society
| like China's, where anyone can be disappeared for any
| amount of time with impunity if they offend a powerful
| person. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/what-drives-
| high-profile-...
|
| If you're upset about what was happening in the US during
| the 1950s, definitely don't learn anything about what was
| happening in China at that time. Mao, Stalin, and Hitler
| are all vying in Hell for the title of Most Lethal Human
| Being Ever.
| trasz wrote:
| And you don't find it strange that you trust US media
| outlets more than you trust Peng Shuai herself?
| civilized wrote:
| Yes, Peng Shuai came out to say she was fine, with no
| explanation for the months of disappearance. She recanted
| her allegations, again with no detail or explanation as
| to why she made them against a prominent party official
| or how exactly her plain words were supposedly
| misunderstood.
|
| Only a child or a 50-center would assume that these
| things happened without threat or coercion.
|
| And she is only the latest in a long list of
| disappearances of CCP persona non grata, as documented in
| the links I previously provided.
| trasz wrote:
| "Only a child or a 50-center would assume that" someone
| might disappear from the foreign social media for a few
| weeks without oppressive regime forcing them to? Do you
| realise how ridiculous you sound?
|
| As for "CCP full of angels" - of course not. I'm just not
| indoctrinated enough to believe US is any better. There's
| one fundamental difference though: China is improving.
| civilized wrote:
| Hmm, you seem to have conveniently omitted the more
| damning half. Denying her own allegation without any
| explanation.
|
| Why don't you tell us why you believe the CCP is full of
| angels who would never do such things? Any friends there?
|
| > I'm just not indoctrinated enough to believe US is any
| better.
|
| You don't need to be indoctrinated. You're actively
| ignoring any evidence that is inconvenient for your rosy
| picture of China. From the CCP's perspective, you're the
| perfect citizen. They wouldn't even need to censor if the
| country were full of good obedient citizens like you, who
| believe what they are supposed to believe and ignore what
| they are supposed to ignore.
|
| > China is improving
|
| I believe that as much as I believe Russia is invading
| Ukraine for its own good.
| trasz wrote:
| And you are actively ignoring any evidence that's
| inconvenient for your rosy picture of United States. From
| both of your parties[1] perspective you're a perfect
| citizen.
|
| See, here's the thing: nobody is claiming China is
| perfect. But you assume US is, or that it's at least
| better than China. Despite the million people killed just
| because your president wanted reelection, or the fact
| that your law doesn't quite apply to wealthy people, or
| the fact that the police is murdering people for their
| skin color with impunity.
|
| Ever wondered why?
|
| 1. Two parties is fundamentally different from one party,
| right?
| civilized wrote:
| > And you are actively ignoring any evidence that's
| inconvenient for your rosy picture of United States.
|
| I'm actually not. I have pointed to several examples of
| things you have repeatedly chosen to ignore, and you have
| pointed to zero examples of things I have ignored.
|
| "I know you are but what am I" is a children's game. When
| adults speak, it is based on facts and logic and
| evidence.
|
| > See, here's the thing: nobody is claiming China is
| perfect. But you assume US is, or that it's at least
| better than China.
|
| It is better in some ways, which you have so far refused
| to acknowledge.
|
| I have no problem acknowledging US faults. I have no
| problem acknowledging that China is better at not
| starting pointless wars, for example.
|
| You should have no difficulty acknowledging that it is
| impossible to know the extent to which China is improving
| or has rule of law when all information is restricted by
| the CCP's totalitarian censorship regime. And you
| obviously understand corruption, so you should have no
| difficulty acknowledging that we should be deeply
| skeptical that an overwhelmingly censored society has
| rule of law. Because the point of censorship is to
| protect the government from what the people would do if
| they knew the truth.
|
| I do not care which country is better. I am not here to
| be a good little obedient nationalistic drone of any
| country. I care that the good people of China and America
| understand the natures of the systems that rule over them
| and fight against the corruption in those systems.
| ebruchez wrote:
| > USA doesn't have rule of law
|
| Total nonsense. The US doesn't have _perfect_ rule of law but
| then nothing is ever perfect. Failures like the ones you are
| presenting have been widely reported, are largely
| controversial, and nobody who has criticized those arguably
| undesirable outcomes has been silenced or disappeared by the
| US government.
|
| I would a thousand times rather be indicted in the US or most
| European countries than in China or in Russia where the
| arbitrary and corruption of the judicial system reign.
| trasz wrote:
| >Total nonsense. The US doesn't have perfect rule of law
| but then nothing is ever perfect.
|
| So how is it different from China again?
|
| As for being indicted - please check out statistics of how
| many people in American prisons were sentenced without
| proving them guilty. The fundamental difference between
| legal systems in US and China is that the American system
| is faulty by design, ie its flaws are not considered flaws.
| Same way politician's corruption is considered normal.
| ebruchez wrote:
| > how is it different from China again
|
| It's a matter of degree. Not everything is black or
| white. Things can be better or they can be worse.
|
| Since there is no way to just argue one's way out of it,
| I'll just point you to the ranking established by the
| World Justice Project [1] in this document [2].
|
| Overall ranking (lower is better):
|
| - United States: ranking 27
|
| - China: ranking 98
|
| - Russian Federation: ranking 101
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Justice_Project
|
| [2] https://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/default/files/d
| ocument...
| trasz wrote:
| What would you say if I quoted a similar index released
| by Beijing (as opposed to Washington) that shows opposite
| score?
| ebruchez wrote:
| I would say that I generally have more trust in openness,
| transparency, and independence than in closeness,
| opacity, and subservience to a single party. Therefore, a
| priori, I would assign more trust to documents and
| research produced in the "West" or other places with
| these values than in anything coming out of mainland
| China. But please, go ahead and quote.
| duxup wrote:
| Does this stop their government from doing it?
|
| Are the courts independent enough to even utilize this law?
| fpoling wrote:
| I think comments here that this all about Chinese government
| wanting to silence political opponents via arbitrary application
| of the law miss the point. Preventing use of algorithms takes
| power from big internet companies to feed addictive content. In
| turn this is in line a general policy of CCP to curb the
| influence of big companies or prevent those to appear in the
| first place even if those companies follow all government
| guidelines.
|
| I think CCP realized that any too-big-to-fall or too influential
| entity threatened CCP as a big organization even under tight
| control still provides an alternative that may very quickly
| become problematic for the government. With smaller entities the
| option just to shut down them is very effective way to deal with
| them.
| trasz wrote:
| This deserves reposting (by
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=onlyartists):
|
| "It fits the current Western media narrative but misses the the
| point if you view every CPC action as security against threats
| to its control.[1]
|
| They genuinely care for people and are doing this for their
| people's best: it comes on the heels of similar laws targeting
| addictive online gaming and restricting students access to this
| around a year ago. It's not about a battle between big tech and
| government for control (a decidedly Western projection), it's
| more China being innovative about the real threat to people's
| well being that tracking, and optimized recommendation can do.
| We know the threat in the West, just our system cannot do
| anything about it, because of the "freedom" of liberal
| democracy's lobbying system's and free market principles. The
| central government is acting on this because they can. Like
| most everything CPC does, it is an experiment: e.g, Hainan FTP
| is the nation's "biggest testing ground for addressing
| institutional weak links" and "Hainan plays the role of a
| testing ground for China's opening-up and helps ensure economic
| security" [2].
|
| If you want to consider second order affects of this
| flex/ability, here's my take: They have the mandate, the
| political will, and the real power to enact these experiments /
| innovative reforms and this is another. Their governing system
| is constantly evolving. That flexibility is why I think they
| will win, if you want to compare governing systems: they can
| simply afford to take more risks, and thereby iterate/zero-in
| on more correct solutions by exploring the state space of
| governance, more effectively than less flexibile/more
| brittle/more stymied-by-existing power-players, "Western
| liberal democracies". It's good for China, and sad for the
| West, but I think it's a teachable moment for the West: that I
| hope can encourage/inspire the West's own period of "reform and
| opening up"
|
| [1]: Tho understandable from a Western PoV given combative
| rhetoric of late--it does seem insecure, right? Tho that point
| is more a voice that wants to be in command of how it is
| narrated, rather than have Western propaganda (driven by the
| West's own insecurities about China) misrepresent it
|
| [2]: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202204/1259272.shtml"
| andreilys wrote:
| _They genuinely care for people and are doing this for their
| people 's best:_
|
| Please explain how the continued lockdown in Shanghai is
| doing good for its citizens vs. not wanting to lose face on
| an absurd zero covid policy as a way to secure political
| points?
| culi wrote:
| China's total deaths from covid are likely in the tens of
| thousands. These "extremely harsh" zero covid policies have
| saved countless lives in the most populous country in the
| world (and lives in other countries). This is a pretty
| bizarre thing to criticize China about. In terms of the
| total amount of people they've had to lockdown and for the
| total length each person had to be locked down for, they've
| done way less than any other major country including the US
| bllguo wrote:
| this is ridiculous. It can genuinely believe that lockdown
| is the best approach, even if said approach turns out to be
| the wrong move. Which is hardly even a settled point.
|
| In fact, it seems like the height of arrogance to think
| China is making decisions about its greatest city with
| Western opinion in mind.
| chillacy wrote:
| > doing good for its citizens
|
| Not to be semantic but this can be measured very
| differently depending on who you ask, and if someone's
| objective function has deaths weighing much more heavily
| than personal freedom (actually not an insignificant amount
| of people in the US as well subscribe to this for covid)
| then yea that is "good". Else I'm unaware of a universal
| agreed upon definition of the best tradeoff to make.
| onlyartists wrote:
| galacticaactual wrote:
| This article is exceptionally naive to the point of propaganda
| and it is both interesting and sad that other comments to that
| effect are downvoted.
|
| This is simple groundwork to ensure that CCP can dictate what
| people are allowed to engage with on the CCPs terms. "Positive"
| here is whatever the government says it is.
| joemazerino wrote:
| China provides this law because they already track everything
| every citizen does. This is a virtue signal from a country
| gripped by a brutal and oppressive government.
| nayuki wrote:
| Yes. You really can't take China's laws and proclamations at
| face value. Look at how many times they tried to "ban" Bitcoin
| or VPNs, yet they keep coming back. China does what China
| wants, and the written laws are a smokescreen.
| xtian wrote:
| What evidence do you have for that claim?
| kurthr wrote:
| So this video is meant to be funny, but it really isn't funny
| for the government to brainwash school children... or have
| forced sterilization and prison camps for ethnic minorities.
|
| https://youtu.be/MipTHyFXYTE?t=175
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-47236902
| user_7832 wrote:
| I don't fully agree that that is the reasoning. Addictive
| algorithms or not, Facebook/TikTok et al can and does track you
| comfortably (as do most states including China).
|
| But if you observe some recent laws you'll see that the
| government sometimes does do things that are (what it thinks)
| is good for its citizens. For example there was a recent law
| limiting gaming hours for children. Agree or disagree with the
| implementation, a state can simultaneously be doing terrible
| things while also trying to do good things. Governments are not
| a monolithic unit.
| LordGronk wrote:
| I think the issue he is pointing out is that China has plenty
| of laws that, as written, guarantee the exact opposite of
| what the state actually does. For instance, article 35 of the
| PRC's constitution guarantees "freedom of speech, the press,
| assembly, association, procession and demonstration.", yet
| that is obviously not the case in practice.
| HippoBaro wrote:
| This is great, and we should celebrate China for doing this. I
| would genuinely love to see this kind of legislative will in
| Western society.
|
| My main question is that it seems very hard to distinguish
| between a legitimate recommendation system and a system that is
| designed to capture your attention. For instance, I like being
| able to see related items on Amazon when evaluating a purchase.
| That recommendation empowers me as a consumer. China can afford
| to make the law vague because the regulator will never be
| challenged in its interpretation. That wouldn't work elsewhere, I
| think.
|
| That being said, not all is great. China grants rights to people
| over their data while making it clear that they don't own any of
| it. This legislation is part of a broader regulatory framework
| designed to give the state a true monopoly free of all limits.
| This should give us pause.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think we need to be careful in how this is read. It has some
| great public interest points, but also includes some language
| which more or less would prevent sentiment that was contrary to
| regime policies, etc. But again, lots of positives too.
|
| >""Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall...:"
|
| Art 6: "... actively disseminate positive energy, and promote the
| application of algorithms to be good."
|
| Art 8: "... not set up algorithm models that induce users to
| indulge in addiction, excessive consumption, etc. ..."
|
| Art 13: "... not generate synthetic false news information or
| disseminate it. ..."
|
| Art 14: "... not use algorithms to falsely register accounts,
| illegal transaction accounts, manipulate user accounts, or
| falsely like, comment, or forward ..."
|
| Art 16: "... notify users in a conspicuous manner of their
| provision of algorithmic recommendation services, and publicize
| the basic principles, purposes, and main operating mechanisms
| ..."
|
| Articles 18 and 19 are similar but emphasize the particularities
| of minors and the elderly -- demographics that have very
| particular needs and requirements (e.g. minors shouldn't have
| easy access to unsafe content and elders have specific medical
| necessities).
|
| Art 17: "... provide users with options that are not tailored to
| their personal characteristics, or provide users with a
| convenient option to turn off the algorithmic recommendation
| service. ...""
| [deleted]
| AlbertoRomGar wrote:
| A month ago, China made effective a new regulation that will
| force companies like Alibaba, Tencent, or ByteDance to give users
| the option to turn off recommendations, among other measures
| targeting algorithms to protect minors and the elderly, ensure
| fair pricing, prohibit fake news generation, or reduce addiction.
|
| Is this the beginning of a world optimized for well-being instead
| of engagement?
| imglorp wrote:
| trasz wrote:
| 2fast4you wrote:
| Is it really worth mentioning that? I don't see how "What
| about US atrocities?" is relevant here. At best it's a
| distraction, at worst you're implying that we shouldn't
| talk about China because the US is bad too.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Lower than all of the deaths caused by Mao? Really?
|
| Also, if intent is the greatest predictor of future deaths
| (as opposed to just tallying past deaths), a chronically
| tyrannical regime looks way worse than a democracy's
| bungled retributive invasion.
| thethethethe wrote:
| The majority of western accounts of great Chinese famine
| come from the book "Hungry Ghosts" which provides almost
| zero actual evidence of the event other than
| sensationalized accounts.
|
| If you actually look for the sources of data and don't
| just blindly believe the western propaganda pieces
| repeating the same figures, this will become pretty
| obvious.
|
| I'm not suggesting that there wasn't trouble, death, and
| suffering during this period but I'd take the multi
| million death counts generously extrapolated from
| incomplete with a bolder of salt.
|
| https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-
| millions...
| trasz wrote:
| yakz wrote:
| What does this have to do with the article or imglorp's
| post? How is this relevant to the discussion at all? What
| are you trying to say? I don't understand why you are
| bringing this up. Would you please explain it?
| trasz wrote:
| It's relevant by showing that the problems pointed out by
| imglorp, while real, tend to happen in every country of
| that size, and selectively using them to condemn a
| country is silly - especially so when done by a state
| that's objectively much worse in that regard; also note
| that while most of those problems in China happened in a
| distant past, in US they are recent (Middle East) or
| current (imprisoning people without proving them guilty
| or police shooting random people with no consequences).
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| > Is this the beginning of a world optimized for well-being
| instead of engagement?
|
| No, it is not.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
|
| It's amazing to me how easily people "forget" the actual UN-
| recognized religious holocaust that is happening right now,
| while praising its architects.
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| I was actually thinking this morning that I'd like a similar
| feature for YouTube. It's recommdation system seems to
| basically regurgitate the very last thing I watched.
|
| I'd like a button or option to tone down how much a video
| influences the recommendation. Not ignore since I obviously
| wanted to watch it but I don't need 500 videos of various
| scenes in a film just because one popped in my head and I just
| wanted to see that.
| causi wrote:
| Ye gods I miss the days when I could watch "Ben Cooks part 1"
| and actually have the suggested videos be "Ben Cooks part 2"
| and "Ben Cooks part 3".
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| In my experience it would recommend "Ben Cooks part 5"
| after playing "Ben Cooks part 2", for some reason.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "Is this the beginning of a world optimized for well-being
| instead of engagement?"
|
| I am too cynical to believe this. Would be nice though.
| misterbwong wrote:
| Sadly, I'm with you on this. My immediate reaction after
| reading that quote was "Who decides what constitutes well-
| being?"
|
| Unfortunately, the answer is whomever is in power.
| blagie wrote:
| Honestly, the older I get, the more I like the vision of a
| 1930-era utopia. I get up. I have a communal exercise
| program in the morning. I work for some number of hours,
| while kids are at school. It's a 32 hour work week, but
| that's made up for with my 8 hours mandatory education. I'm
| guaranteed a job, a house, food, and medical care. I'm
| guaranteed retirement and disability too. There is no
| advertising. I don't have access to video games, alcohol,
| drugs, or Facebook.
|
| I can describe how I'd set one up, to guarantee personal
| freedoms and human rights, and reasonable systems of
| governance, but at the end of the day, I think "whomever is
| in power" will make better decisions about human well-being
| than the invisible hand of capitalism.
|
| I think China has some elements of the right approach:
|
| - Free markets for mass-produced commodities.
|
| - Socialized banks, resources, real estate, and other rent-
| collecting industries.
|
| - A hybrid for tech and information
| cercatrova wrote:
| > _the more I like the vision of a 1930-era utopia_
|
| A utopia for non-minorities, you mean? Because the 1930s
| were not necessarily a pleasant time for everyone
| involved.
| brianhorakh wrote:
| China has a technocratic communisim which embraces
| capitalism since the 1970s. That includes the learnings
| and notes from a 5,000 year old administrative bueracracy
| corps formed by qishihuang of the first ming dynasty.
| China is doing great (today), however poor planning as
| recently as the 1970s lead to widespread food shortages
| and people selling their kids to butchers for cannabalism
| (so it still has capitalism is my point). I like china
| personally, it's not a utopia, but it is closer to utopia
| than anything I have experienced in the usa.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Unless you have to breathe the air in Beijing :)
| blagie wrote:
| China doesn't embrace capitalism. They're thoughtful
| about where they have and haven't embraced it.
|
| On the whole, I am glad for China. I like having multiple
| systems, and unlike many others, I feel like the
| government is trying very hard to improve, and sometimes
| succeeding.
|
| However, I think your view of it as closer to a utopia is
| a little disconnected from reality. The US is still a
| nicer place to live than China, unless you're a tourist.
| The gap has closed rapidly, but it's still there.
|
| I think each system has upsides and downsides. I'm glad
| for having multiple systems. I hope they can learn from
| each other. The Chinese concepts of meritocracy, family,
| and long-term planning, as well as the emphasis on
| education, would go a long ways here. I also like what's
| socialized and what isn't. I like weak IP laws and
| contracts; I think China's in the right place there now
| (I wouldn't have said so a few years back, where it was
| the wild west)
|
| The US still has lower corruption. The US is much more
| transparent. I also don't like the way Chinese
| politicians are kinda dicks, openly insulting the US.
| Then there's issues like Tibet, Honk Kong, Taiwan, and
| the Uighurs, as well as mass surveillance (although the
| US is not much better on the last one, as of late).
|
| I feel like at some point, China might find a chill
| government who will let a lot of those slide or move into
| a more balanced position.
|
| I hope they do. I can see path for China to really become
| closer to a utopia than virtually any other place right
| now.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _It 's a 32 hour work week, but that's made up for with
| my 8 hours mandatory education._
|
| What are you requesting be done to you if you are found
| to be truant from your mandatory education? That's the
| other side of laws that seems to be ignored in these
| kinds of proposals.
| emodendroket wrote:
| If that's your objection then anything other than tyranny
| is impossible. By definition the people who do anything
| have power.
| loceng wrote:
| Does this include removing the layer below this layer of the
| filtering/censoring of what content can reach the masses to
| begin with? Is it a double standard and/or hypocritical and/or
| virtue signalling otherwise? "These individual companies aren't
| capable of doing this for the betterment of society but we
| are"?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Well-being can't be measured, so it can't be optimized for.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Oh, well, we might not agree on what the best measure of it
| is. But we have quite a few contenders.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| If it really disables recommendations and just displays content
| in chronological order, it would be quite nice. Although
| technically the differentiation isn't trivial. Is a simple
| search optimized for relevancy an algorithmic suggestion? I
| would say yes, even if it is clear what is meant in spirit of
| these laws: Suggesting buzzing content to increase engagement.
|
| Looking at Google results that clearly favor media outlets
| compared to any other content, something similar could maybe
| bring back better search results. I am amazed that Google
| sabotages their primary product in such a way.
| jleyank wrote:
| Their primary product is delivering eyeballs to ads, and
| they've boiling-frogged us all to accepting them at the top
| of the search. Or, maybe income as been added to their
| legendary search algorithms?
| whoopdedo wrote:
| Chronological order doesn't mean unbiased. LIFO is an
| algorithm. The only way to remove bias from the platform
| would be to deliver 100% of the available content at equal
| priority. But practical time and space limitations make that
| impossible. If a provider is nothing more than a dumb pipe
| moving bits from an input queue to an output queue, then the
| control of the moderation moves further away from the end
| user and into the hands of the content creators. Whoever is
| better and faster at getting their bits pushed into the pipe
| will be able to censor by brute force any opposing
| viewpoints.
|
| Better search won't change that. If the current state of
| search is trying to find the one independent needle in a pile
| of commercially produced hay, imagine how it will be when the
| farmer didn't hire someone to shovel all the manure out of
| the barn.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| You could allow the user to design his own algorithm...
| Proven wrote:
| charcircuit wrote:
| TikTok would suck so much if they blocked you from your Follows
| recommendation feed and For You recommendation feed. The
| platform doesn't have a nonpersonalized feed so you will have
| to search for content you want to watch.
| TimPC wrote:
| The law doesn't specify what you get when you turn off the
| recommendations, largely because there are too many
| possibilities and it can't adequately define a solution over
| all products. The net result is companies will likely comply to
| the minimum extent possible allowing you to turn off your
| algorithmic feed by turning off your feed entirely. Many
| products will be useless without this feed so consumers will
| opt into turning it back on and nothing will change.
|
| For example, with facebook, a good user experience would be
| turning off the algorithmic feed results in a purely temporal
| one with all your existing filters in place. I highly doubt
| facebook is going to reimplement a temporal feed to give people
| a viable option for turning off the feed they want them to use.
|
| So my prediction is nothing will change because the algorithms
| disabled option will intentionally be a very poor experience
| designed to make you immediately turn the algorithms back on.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Judges usually hate this "well actually..." reasoning when
| you try to go against the spirit of the law in the US.
|
| I assume in China where they can just jail the CEO on bull
| shit charges they'll definitely put in a good faith effort.
| charcircuit wrote:
| There is too much content on big platforms to make unpersonalized
| recommendation systems viable. Even something simple like a feed
| showing you videos from people you follow is a recommendation
| system personalized to you based off the users that you
| personally follow. Without personalization you get stuff like
| trending videos with maybe new videos sprinkled in too help new
| videos catch traction. YouTube's trending page is pretty much
| universally hated by everyone I've talked to.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| So we're holding China, who's running a UN-recognized genocide
| against the Uyghur people, and who restricts travel and jobs on
| an algorithmic social credit score, up as doing something
| socially positive against algorithms, huh
|
| There is no war in Ba Sing Se; we have never been at war with
| Eastasia
| jpswade wrote:
| This is already an option under GRPR.
| TrailMixRaisin wrote:
| Some elements of the law are part of the GDPR, but I would say
| that the Chinese law has an much more broad and ambitious
| scope. GDPR regulates that a human is not subject to an
| automatic decision that has a (negative) legal effect on him or
| her. The Chinese law additionally prohibits elements that built
| addiction, prevent bots from registering accounts, not generate
| synthetic false information, etc.
|
| I would assume that enforcing such a law is extremely hard. The
| cynical part of me assumes that the unclear regulations will be
| used to silence companies and individuals that do not match the
| governments ideology. But I still think that many countries
| would be well adviced to include something similar in their
| legislation.
| zeruch wrote:
| ..does anyone else find some small irony in this, given that
| China is also the country fixated on CCTVs and social scoring of
| its own citizens in a panopticon of its own design?
|
| I don't disagree with the premise of people > algorithm, just
| noting the almost strange disconnect between it and the
| underlying polity and its tendencies.
| esjeon wrote:
| I'm pretty sure CCP is trying its best to protect _itself_.
|
| It basically wants to be the single source of truth in the
| country, but algorithms interfere with this goal by providing
| "bubbles" to users. Once a person falls into a bubble, his view
| will start diverging from what CCP wants their people to see,
| causing instability inside the society. This is obviously a
| huge threat to their authority.
| hackernewds wrote:
| This makes a ton of sense. Seems the next frontier for the
| CCP is to gain control of tech companies, most of which could
| be peppered with talent that has studied in the West
| [deleted]
| analyst74 wrote:
| Because you're seeing it through the lense of western media.
|
| If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is
| trying to do good for its citizens, those are straight forward
| decisions.
|
| CCTV protects people from street crime; credit score seems to
| provide tremendous value in establishing trust between
| strangers, let's build a better version; people > algorithms,
| let's regulate the latter.
| eximius wrote:
| And "reeducating" non-Han minorities is also for good of its
| citizens? Those who disagree with the party?
|
| A benevolent authoritarian government _could_ be very
| efficient and good, but we still reject authoritarianism
| because it is bad.
| iqihs wrote:
| You're delusional
| alphabetting wrote:
| >If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is
| trying to do good for its citizens
|
| Why would anyone do that given treatment of Uyghurs?
| analyst74 wrote:
| It's a difficult topic, I don't think any country has found
| a humane way to deal with terrorist organizations.
|
| US chose to bomb Afghanistan into the ground, China chose
| to establish very strict social controls. Both are terribly
| inhumane to innocent people in those regions, but what are
| real alternatives?
| 2fast4you wrote:
| Nobody is talking about terrorist organizations.
| prewett wrote:
| Terrorism was the reason given for the initial escalation
| towards the Uighurs around 2014. There were several
| domestic terrorism incidents involving a handful of
| Uighurs around, the most notable (to me) being there was
| a car-fire/bomb in Tian'anmen Square late 2013 and a
| knife attack at Kunming Train station.
|
| Wikipedia lists a steady stream of domestic terrorism
| incidents involving Uighurs [0]. It seems like the
| Chinese government only has one tool in their toolbox--
| control--so apparently their solution is to eliminate the
| entire ethnicity, although my prediction is that
| ultimately that will increase the amount of attacks,
| because now the entire population has a (concrete)
| grievance as opposed to a few radicalized ones.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chro
| nology_...
| bckr wrote:
| It's a mental exercise similar to watching a movie."Willing
| suspension of disbelief", it's called. Why would you care
| whether Mr. Big Muscles is winning or not given that he's
| just pretending to be the hero of the universe?
|
| From the Chinese perspective, what their government is
| doing to the Uyghurs is justified because terrorist
| separatist muslims. And anyway, from the Chinese
| perspective, nothing really bad is happening to the Uyghurs
| anyway, they're just being reformed into good citizens.
| snapcaster wrote:
| If you're American I'm sure you can relate to the Chinese
| here. I almost never think about the millions of dead
| Iraqi people my tax money contributed to
| alphabetting wrote:
| The major difference is in America you can criticize what
| America did to Iraqis at the top of your lungs and work
| to get different leaders elected. Can't do the same in
| China without consequences.
| tauwauwau wrote:
| Path to hell is paved with good intentions, and I don't think
| their are any good leaders.
| andreilys wrote:
| _If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is
| trying to do good for its citizens,_
|
| Please explain how the continued lockdown in Shanghai is "the
| Chinese government" doing good for its citizens vs. not
| wanting to lose face on an absurd zero covid policy?
| [deleted]
| zeruch wrote:
| "Because you're seeing it through the lense of western
| media."
|
| No, I'm seeing it through taking a series of factually
| established premises, and comparing them. Critical thinking
| (however anecdotally a position one launches from) isn't a
| byproduct of "Western Media".
|
| "If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is
| trying to do good for its citizens, those are straight
| forward decisions." Are they?
|
| "CCTV protects people from street crime" ...or just makes
| investing in ski masks popular? Your statement is so absent
| any context (who has access to the CCTV, what legal recourse
| is there for auditing the footage from a privacy or legal
| evidentiary perspective), are there controls to prevent
| abuse, etc.
|
| I said nothing of a credit score. I said a social score,
| which is a very different, and much more contentious issue:
| https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-
| system-e...
| culi wrote:
| China has recently had a lot of really similar rulings. The
| issue is that filter of western media wouldn't let you hear
| about those as often as you hear about CCTVs. Did you know
| their equivalent of the supreme court recently ruled that
| people can't be filmed in shopping malls (and other public
| spaces) without their consent?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| To all of those skeptical of this law because it was written in
| China- what's wrong with importing it to the U.S., the EU, or the
| U.K., adapting it to local characteristics, and then using it?
| Even if you might question the spirit of it in the PRC, what's
| wrong with the letter of it in a different country? Isn't the
| idea still sound
| Phithagoras wrote:
| I like the concept. What happens if a company claims to have
| removed their recommendations yet has not? Would this even be
| enough to cause a scandal with real consequences?
|
| In the western world the vast majority of people I know already
| have zero issues being tracked, advertised to, recommended to,
| and generally manipulated for "engagement" and profit. A weak
| law, passed too early and without widespread cultural
| significance would serve only to give a tighter, more insidious
| grip on a typical used's view of media, music, and reality in
| general.
| lin83 wrote:
| > In the western world the vast majority of people I know
| already have zero issues being tracked, advertised to,
| recommended to, and generally manipulated for "engagement" and
| profit.
|
| The vast majority of people have no thought out opinion on the
| matter. They have no idea how much data is gathered about them,
| how it's sold and how it's used. Ignorance is not the same as
| affirmation.
| lazyier wrote:
| In sincerely doubt that goal of this legislation is to "curb
| information gathering".
|
| This is kinda the entire point of their social credit system.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| As if the West didn't have social credit system. Not too
| long ago, there was a discussion here about algorithmic
| tenant scoring, and there were users here defending the
| practice. In China there's at least some legislation to
| curb abuses. In the US, not so much.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| While the laws being selectively enforced in the West is
| a major issue it is a much larger issue in China. Laws
| like these are tools to get others to do what the
| government wants under implied threat.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The vast majority of people are well aware that anything they
| put on a digital device gets vacuumed up. Whether make witty
| quips about corperate overlords or their FBI agent is
| immaterial.
|
| I know HN has a lot of people who subscribe to beliefs in the
| same ballpark as "people are stupid and need to be helped"
| but rest assured, people are well aware that they're getting
| bent over when it comes to their data.
| lazyier wrote:
| In practice it will be a arbitrary weapon used by politicians
| in the Chinese regime to club companies that don't play ball
| over the head with.
|
| It's all value-based judgements. Entirely subjective laws. What
| is "disinformation", "manipulate user accounts", or "convenient
| option"?
|
| The answer to all those things "Whatever the hell the regime
| feels like".
|
| Meaning that if you want to avoid being accused of not
| providing a "convenient-enough option to turn off the
| algorithmic recommendation service" then you have to keep the
| Chinese politicians happy with you and your company.
| Essentially whether or not you are breaking the law depends on
| their perception/how pleased they are of what you are doing.
|
| Keep in mind that we are dealing with a totalitarian regime.
| Their idea of things like "false news" is going to be any
| history that does not align with their communist agenda. Such
| as covid probably originated from a research facility in Wuhan,
| that Mao's rise to power involved slaughtering peasants, or
| that something untoward happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
|
| This isn't to "protect users" it's to provide yet another
| legislative club they can use to force western corporations to
| give the government ever increasing concessions.
| helen___keller wrote:
| I half agree. The CCP already has a lot of tools to wield
| power over any company that doesn't play ball. This law will
| become part of that tool kit, but not much different from the
| status quo in that regard.
|
| The real change here is making it easier to enact soft
| censorship. If you want less people talking about a topic,
| right now the primary tool is outright censorship by the
| state. I think what the CCP wants is to let people post on a
| subject, but nobody sees your post, with a net effect that
| the subject falls out of public discourse without being
| outright censored.
| makotech221 wrote:
| Most major companies have communist party officials embedded
| into the corporate structure, so if a party member is found to
| be negligent, they would be arrested/removed from power.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| This is largely in line with changes in the regulatory landscape
| of China and particular the tech sector overall. Up until now
| China has let private business do whatever it wants with economic
| growth as pretty much the only goal but just like anywhere else
| it's created a big rift between social outcomes and market
| outcomes.
|
| Over the last few years the language has changed from growth in a
| quantitative sense to a qualitative sense. Equity is a big
| concern in China nowadays with high levels of inequality, even
| old Communist sentiments reemerging in particular online among
| poorer demographics, 'ethics', 'reasonable corporate behavior'
| are phrases that nowadays pop up often in laws and party
| publications as well.
|
| I think people should be cautiously optimistic about this because
| the fact that China is passing laws with real teeth that take
| welfare in a broad sense into account rather than just continuing
| with brute growth even if it hurts stock valuations short term is
| an indicator that governance is able to take a somewhat longer
| look.
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