Facebook, meet your mentor. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.
The impact of fake news is getting harder and harder to dismiss. Just this Sunday, an armed man fired shots inside a pizzeria because of a fake news article that accused Hillary Clinton and her top campaign aide of running a child sex ring out of said restaurant. As social media plays a larger role in distributing news, how tech companies handle rumors and falsehood is crucial.
Tencent, the Chinese tech giant behind social messaging app WeChat, has taken a multi-pronged approach. Given Mark Zuckerberg’s interest in the Chinese market, Facebook could learn a few things from its Chinese counterpart – especially as its future potential competitor.
Rumor digests
With more than 800 million users on its platform, WeChat is a sizable digital empire. Governing it isn’t easy.
According to a 2015 study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), WeChat blocks “rumors” as many as 2.1 million times a day. It’s hard to say what exactly counts as a “rumor” in WeChat, as the app’s content regulations are coupled with China’s internet censorship policies. However, it’s fair to assume that in addition to politically sensitive content, Tencent has a range of undesirable content to block, from scams to fake news.
In 2014, the Chinese tech giant launched an official WeChat account called ‘Rumor Filter’ to help users distinguish fact from fiction. The account regularly publishes a digest of widely circulated fake news with explanations on why claims are false. For example, there was a rumor on WeChat that Trump was born in the Sichuan province of China. Another fake post asserted that washing your head first when showering would cause cerebral hemorrhaging.
This June, Tencent added another feature to Rumor Filter, an automated fact-checking service that can be accessed through the chat interface. For example, one user asked whether or not drinking more water cures common colds (it doesn’t). However, it’s still pretty basic and will more often than not send an auto-reply of “Please describe your rumor debunking question” if it doesn’t understand what you’re saying.
It’s not clear how effectively the Rumor Filter stems the flow of fake news on WeChat, since it doesn’t block or flag posts. But it’s worth noting how proactively Tencent has implemented systems against fake news circulation, something Facebook has been reluctant to accept responsibility for in the aftermath of the US election.
A slippery slope
Categorizing what is and isn’t ‘fake news’ is tricky, especially in China, a country where censorship is used to quell dissent and quash opposition to the Party. However, so far the content on Rumor Filter – aside from the Trump rumor – seems apolitical, sticking to rumors that are simple to debunk, like those related to healthcare. By pointing out fake news, Tencent isn’t censoring anything per se – just informing users of misinformation. In addition to the Rumor Filter, WeChat also lets users flag and report potentially fake or offensive posts.
But Tencent has more subtle ways of censoring political conversations on WeChat. Last week, researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab released a new study on WeChat censorship. The system is growing increasingly sophisticated, utilizing AI to intelligently remove politically sensitive keywords – even when Chinese users are traveling outside of China. A combination of the keywords “June 4”, “student”, and “democracy movement” are removed once entered into a WeChat group, for instance.
Tencent has even more drastic measures of content control. When organizations or companies with official WeChat accounts break Tencent’s broad content rules, like writing about former President Jiang Zemin’s hairstyle, their accounts can be shut down overnight.
“Internet users come from many places, each with their own experiences and opinions. Therefore, it is too much to ask them to be right on every topic,” said Xi Jinping, President of China, in a speech emphasizing the need for a “clean” and “righteous” cyberspace earlier this year.
China’s internet ecosystem falls under heavy censorship laws, where you could get thrown in jail for seven years for spreading a rumor viewed by more than 5,000 netizens or retweeted more than 500 times. The Chinese government, ever wary of instability, holds tech companies responsible for content generated or shared by their users. For example, a number of Chinese cloud storage providers have fallen to tightening content regulations in the industry this year, unable to shoulder the cost. As WeChat’s user base continues to grow, controlling the threat of fake news on the platform is paramount.
By no means should Facebook adopt the more draconian methods of content regulation on WeChat. As an American company, Facebook has more leeway on how it treats fake news, and in the US, too much control, not too little, is more of a concern. But WeChat could be a valuable case study for the US tech giant. If Facebook plans to enter China, it too will have to abide by China’s harsh anti-rumor laws – and be ready to account for the fake news on its website.
This is an opinion piece.
This post https://www.techinasia.com/wrangling-fake-news-tencent appeared first on Tech in Asia.
from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/wrangling-fake-news-tencent
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