Beijing published 30 large technology algorithms • The record

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Beijing’s internet regulator, has released information about the algorithms used by some of the country’s biggest tech companies to make their services effective.

The CAC asked for information about algorithms last March as it charges its efforts to clean up the Internet and help consumers understand why they see certain content and thus what shapes their attitudes and choices. A filing system has been launched to help companies disclose the required algorithm information.

Last Friday, the regulator published a list of 30 algorithms – including brief descriptions of the code used by companies such as Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, Baidu and others in their apps and web services. CAC promises more releases to follow.

The list says Internet search company Baidu has an algorithm that evaluates security threats posted on its news site, encyclopedia, online forum Tieba and other services. The algorithm helps the staff to decide what to read and what to avoid.

Duyin – the app that ByteDance calls TikTok outside of China – implements recommendations for graphics, videos, products and services, and recommends content based on behavioral data such as clicks, stays, likes, comments, forwards and dislikes in user history. The algorithms are also used to push customized content into videos, news headlines and product recommendations. The latter is important because Douyin’s algorithms have produced a tremendous amount of consumer engagement for content. As the company moves into e-commerce, the effectiveness of its recommendation algorithms will be key.

Tmall, an e-commerce site owned by Alibaba, uses a set of algorithms to rank products based on user clicks, purchases, sales volume and other data.

In the case of Tencent’s WeChat, personalized push algorithms are applied to data recommendations gathered from the user’s browsing history, the content the user views and other data – resulting in recommended graphics, text and video content.

Beijing first issued an order on the algorithms in September, with self-regulation suggested as acceptable behavior under regulatory guidelines. Beijing’s detailed submission requirement to the algorithm comes after it saw how public opinion in the West was being shaped by automatically covered content.

And while Beijing is unwilling to give up control over the public’s exposure to approved content and ideologies, Big Tech is unwilling to give up trade secrets. Florida man and ex-employee Donald Trump unsuccessfully tried to get hold of TikTok’s algorithm in 2020 and is full of dark hints about western companies buying TikTok.

Beijing has thrown a wrench in that plan, adding personalized content recommendation algorithms to the list of controlled exports, meaning the Chinese government would have to approve the sale of companies like TikTok to outside parties.

But now Beijing has released some of the information itself – albeit in vague terms. ®