As the “Xinjiang cotton” and Uighur human rights issues continue to fester on social media and Beijing’s escalating propaganda on U.S. social media, U.S. tech leaders and experts have warned Silicon Valley social media companies that economic dealings with China are like “flying into a tempting flytrap that is hard to break out of once you get in. Once inside, it’s hard to break free” and that social media giants who “give in to money will cost a democratic society a lot in terms of information flow. Some experts have even said that some social media companies have been reduced to “a fifth column of the Chinese Communist Party’s complicity.
On Tuesday (April 6), Peter Thiel, an American venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder who also sits on the Facebook board, spoke about Silicon Valley tech companies and China at a web forum hosted by the Nixon Foundation, a think tank.
Thiel: Social media giants have become “complicit in the fifth column of the Chinese Communist Party”
Thiel argued that China should be viewed “in a hostile way. He said he spoke with Google’s artificial intelligence team and found that they didn’t care if their technology was used in labor camps in Xinjiang and never asked questions. “They wishfully pretend that everything is fine. The best of the best (in technology) actually became CCP fifth columnist collaborators (CCP fifth columnist collaborators).” Thiel said.
Arthur Herman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Quantum League program, said Russian disinformation had a big impact in the United States, but “China is getting more sophisticated in the way it manipulates information. In some ways, they have more influence.”
Herman said the media’s filtering of critical Chinese Communist Party voices “will cost us dearly in the years to come.” He pointed to three major recent stories about China: Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the new crown epidemic, which have received little coverage in some U.S. mainstream media. “I don’t think they lack curiosity, but they know that getting to the bottom of these issues will reduce their commercial advertising revenue.” “The media is responsible, and if you abuse your power to suppress and reduce coverage that is unfavorable to China because of your close economic ties to China, we will pay the price in the years to come.” Herman said.
Herman sees the media’s business dealings with China as a flytrap, “It looks tempting, there’s a big market and a lot of opportunity to get involved, but once you’re in, it’s hard to get out. That’s especially true for media companies.” Imagine if the U.S. media had extensive financial dealings with the Soviet Union or its companies during the Cold War, Herman said, it would have been difficult for the U.S. to get real information about the Soviet Union.
Beijing Propaganda Escalates, Facebook Employees Boycott
CGTN, the global television network affiliated with China’s official media CCTV, has more than 115 million fans on Facebook, the fourth largest following in the world, surpassing Coca-Cola and pop singer Rihanna, according to the Wall Street Journal. Despite the blocking of mainstream U.S. social media platforms in China, Beijing has become a major user of the platform, spreading its political narrative to hundreds of millions of people overseas through advertising.
From promoting idyllic life and dance in Xinjiang to boycott videos of Western products, the Chinese government has been using different methods to boycott retail brands such as H&M and Nike in retaliation for Western criticism of its human rights concerns in Xinjiang. These brands expressed concern about forced labor in Xinjiang and stopped using cotton produced in the region, only to quickly find that they were losing out on China, the world’s most important market.
The Wall Street Journal reports that some Facebook employees have expressed concern in internal messages and discussions that the company is being used as a conduit for state propaganda, objecting to the company allowing Beijing to run a “Happy Uyghurs” campaign on its platform that shows Uyghurs “thriving” in the Xinjiang region. ” sponsored posts.
The report cited people familiar with the matter as saying that Facebook management is watching how international organizations such as the United Nations respond to the situation in Xinjiang. The United Nations this week called on companies doing business with Xinjiang to conduct “in-depth human rights due diligence” on their operations.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Center for International Cyber Policy released a detailed investigation last month into Chinese propaganda on Xinjiang, noting that since the early 2020s, the Chinese government and official media have used U.S. social media networks to promote their political narratives and disinformation about Xinjiang. The number of disinformation messages has increased dramatically.
The report also points to a common practice in Beijing, where the Chinese government uses a range of covert and overt accounts to promote political narratives on U.S. social media platforms, including tweets from its diplomats, social media accounts of the official media, and interactions with influential individuals who support Beijing to amplify misleading narratives and spread disinformation.
Earlier this year, Zhuang Rongwen, vice minister of the CPC Central Committee’s Propaganda Department and director of the Central Internet Information Office, emphasized that “regardless of the nature of the platform and the form of communication, the primary focus should be on adhering to the correct political direction, public opinion guidance and value orientation.”
Social Media and Policymakers Should Work Together to Address Beijing
In the face of Beijing’s threats and questionable criticism from all walks of life, some Silicon Valley social media companies took defensive measures on technology earlier this year. Bloomberg reported that Google and Facebook this week announced funding for a new trans-Pacific undersea fiber optic cable connecting the United States and Singapore to bypass the traditional route through the South China Sea, aiming to be wary and distant from China with this new approach.
Liselotte Odgaard, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, called for a broader international perspective on the U.S. social media giant’s behavior. She believes disinformation should be viewed broadly, “including not only China’s but also Russia, the master of promoting disinformation.” And its harm on human rights issues is broad, and it will undermine the free world order, Odegaard said.
Odegaard said Europe has been pushing for more responses from U.S. tech giants to the spread of disinformation, including Chinese propaganda, such as voluntary information sharing where users can flag disinformation campaigns and send alerts. Europe has recommended a more rigorous and diverse approach, including updated and adequate training for content regulators, as well as human rights impact assessments for automated content, greater transparency on user tracking and configuration, and a ban on users migrating data across devices and services without content.
Odegaard said some of the regulatory measures U.S. tech companies are reluctant to do because it would affect their algorithmic systems and, in turn, their data governance and their dominant position in the market. From a business profitability perspective, this is not what they want.
In addition, experts believe that Beijing’s propaganda should also be addressed legislatively.
Grant Blank, a fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute and a senior lecturer at Oxford University, noted that social media in the United States has a low barrier to entry and a strong influence: “It’s simple and cheap, and people can do a lot on social media platforms, and even small organizations can have a huge impact. Because social media can easily attract large numbers of people, you face various levels of liability issues.”
Blank noted that Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Regulatory Act has long provided social media with protection from liability for what users say on their platforms.
Herman of the Hudson Institute said there is a growing consensus, among both Democrats and Republicans, that it’s time to wake up social media companies. “It’s time to wake up the social media companies and challenge Section 230…. Make them accountable…. Otherwise they don’t even need to be held accountable for their false propaganda against foreign governments.”
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