Many Internet users want to read foreign language information, often through translation sites, the Internet giant Google‘s translation tool “Google Translate” is one of them. Recently, some people found that “China breaks promise” (China breaks promise) was translated by Google as “China keeps its word” and “HK breaks promise” is also translated as “Hong Kong keeps its word”. The weird thing is that if you type in the names of other countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, etc., they are all translated normally as “the United States (United Kingdom, Germany) breaks promise”.
Google’s translation error is not uncommon, last October, some users also found that Google translated “Biden lost the election” as “Biden was elected”, and replaced the name with U.S. President Donald Trump was translated correctly. The year before last, during the “Anti-Send China” campaign, a netizen typed in “so sad to see Hong Kong became China” and found that Google also translated the phrase as “happy to see Hong Kong become China”. Google translated the phrase as “so sad to see Hong Kong became China”. At that time, Google claimed that because it was using an automatic system, it sometimes translated negative words into positive ones.
Google would so “accurately” translate the words “China”, “Hong Kong” and “Biden” as “China”, “Hong Kong” and “Biden”. The fact that Google would so “accurately” translate words like “China”, “Hong Kong” and “Biden” incorrectly, resulting in the exact opposite meaning, is suspicious. After all, cold technology does not make “political judgments,” but is of course the result of deliberate “human” manipulation, as has been the case recently.
On January 14, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying took to Twitter to distribute a fake propaganda video on human rights in Xinjiang, denying the Communist Party’s forced labor policy against the Uighurs and accusing the U.S. government of disinformation. The following day, a Twitter spokesperson said that the CCP Foreign Ministry tweets did not violate their company rules.
Twitter has restricted the content of speech on its platform for years, but its censorship practices have recently raised increasing concerns of double standards. In particular, Twitter shut down President Trump’s personal account following the violence at the Capitol on January 6, sparking criticism that it suppresses free speech and exacerbates partisan divisions.
On January 14, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey issued a public statement acknowledging that deleting the president’s account “sets a dangerous precedent” and “deepens the divide in America. But he stressed, “I believe this is the right decision for Twitter. Twitter’s censorship of posts will be ‘much longer’ and much bigger.
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) criticized Twitter’s decision to shut down President Trump’s account as hypocritical. “Twitter refuses to ban, suspend or delete tweets posted by the Chinese Communist Party despite its apparent ethnic cleansing and violence against Uyghurs. The First Amendment right to free speech is at stake.”
To date, President Trump has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit and Instagram, and the technology giant’s blocking or canceling of President Trump’s account has prompted harsh condemnation from dignitaries in the European Union, Germany, France, Australia and Mexico, saying these companies have become a threat to political freedom around the world They need to be more strictly regulated.
Freedom of speech is a universal value and a fundamental right, and freedom of expression is the foundation of a democratic society. The world recognizes that the media is the “uncrowned king” with the fourth power and should adhere to the code of “objectivity, impartiality and neutrality”. However, these big technology media companies have repeatedly overstepped their role as “platforms” and censored speech arbitrarily and even deliberately mistranslated the English language with the arrogance of being “judges”, obviously pleasing the Chinese Communist Party. This makes people lament that high-end technology has been abused by those who want to turn it into a sounding board for red consciousness.
These media platforms have now formed a joint monopoly and are willing to act as the mouthpiece of the CCP; they are using their “power of speech” to block many accounts that expose election fraud, but they are “watering down” the CCP’s fake videos and whitewashing the tyranny; the high-tech elite group is aiding and abetting the evil.
The values of these media companies are self-explanatory. Technology giants have taken control of the data world and turned it into a monster of speech, and the international community must impose public regulation and censorship on large online platforms. Everyone’s right to speak cannot be arbitrarily denied by the technology monster for no good reason.
Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said that social media platform Twitter, online video platform YouTube and other technology companies have become “partisan political tools” and should not be protected by Section 230. He noted that these companies are waging a dangerous war on “free speech” by selectively using their own censorship policies. “These companies undoubtedly pose a threat to the culture, the climate of ideas, and the freedom of choice of Americans protected by the First Amendment.
We hope that Google will promptly admit its mistake and draw a clear line with the Chinese Communist Party. For those who “sing” the praises of the Chinese Communist Party will surely fall into a deep “valley”, or even into a bottomless abyss and never recover.
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