China’s Internet Play: Issues, Censorship and ByteDance in Action

Summary

• China is noted to have the most comprehensive and sophisticated censorship rules across the globe.
• New National security law passed in Hong Kong on 30 June 2020, is all set to shake up digital surveillance in the semi-autonomous nation, with censoring of the country’s internet and user data access.
• TikTok had always maintained that it had not shared any data with government of China. Of late, the app has decided to exit Hong Kong as the newly imposed law would have undermined its case with persistent operations in the area.
• Although China has itself restricted usage of foreign apps, the nation is now facing ban of its applications in India and perhaps in the US market as well.

Imagine you land in China, and unlock your phone to check your news feed on Facebook; suddenly, you are greeted with an error page, the feed does not get refreshed, and no notifications had been received on the app.

Would you feel that you have landed in an alien land?

Certainly yes!

Facebook is banned in China.

Besides Facebook, China also banned the services of Twitter and Google in 2009 after a series of riots in Xinjiang. The Chinese government regulates content it reckons is not for the benefit of state.

China is believed to have the most comprehensive and advanced censorship rules worldwide. Numerous techniques are utilised to regulate online content, which includes of censoring social media platforms, keyword filtering and website blocking, and detaining activists.

The Cyberspace Administration (China) was founded in 2014 as a central internet regulator and censorship, and control agency in China. Apart from Facebook, Twitter, Google, numerous other apps are blocked in China, such as Youtube, Gmail, Quora, Tumblr, and the list is long.

While China is censoring the internet within its borders and blocking various foreign apps; the nation is also looking at an economic benefit by giving rise to homegrown social network apps.

Also, there are several indigenous apps that are prevalent in China - WeChat, Tencent QQ, Weibo, Douyin/TikTok, Kuaishou/Kwai, Xiaohongshu, Zhihu and many more.

Did you read; Are the tides turning against Chinese tech companies?

Just like the way an Octopus uses its long tentacles to reach out in any direction for grabbing its prey (through an unavoidable vice-like grip), we can visualise China as an octopus, symbolising both power as well as dominance.

In the light of above statement, China has unfolded new powers in Hong Kong using a new national security law to censor the country’s internet and access user’s data.

Just when China’s new security law came into effect on 30 June 2020 in Hong Kong; free speech vaporised overnight.

Imposition of the law on semi-autonomous Hong Kong prohibits four broad activities: subversion, terrorism, secession, and colluding with foreign forces.

Under the 116-page government document online censorship plans, police forces were empowered with warrantless raids and monitoring for a few national security investigations.

Further, power was granted to them to remove any online information that was suspected of breaching the national security law.

On the same lines, internet organisations and service providers could be ordered to strike out the information and their equipment could be confiscated. Executives could be levied fines and jailed for up to one year in case of refusal to obey.

Moreover, the organisations are now supposed to provide identification records and support for decryption.

However, the US tech giants have offered some resistance citing rights concerns; Facebook and Twitter have suspended demands for information of users from Hong Kong government or police officials.

Following the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter; companies like Google, Telegram and Microsoft have also denied processing data requests from Hong Kong authorities.

On the other hand, TikTok announced that it would exit from Hong Kong.

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The world’s most popular Chinese short video app, TikTok pulls itself out of Hong Kong

Considering Chinese demonic security law, attempting to curb protest and freedom of speech under the attire of 'bringing back stability’ has led to the exit of TikTok from Hong Kong.

TikTok, which has struggled with its ties to mainland China had earlier mentioned that it would not meet any censor content requests made by the Beijing government. Howver, after the imposition of censorship laws in Hong Kong, TikTok would have been complying with it and compromised on the private user information.

Therefore, this move by TikTok to exit from Hong Kong region becomes noteworthy even though it may result in a loss of more than millions of users.

Read between the lines: TikTok’s owner ByteDance, a major Chinese internet company, has been striving to distinguish the app from Western part of world from its parent and Douyin, the Chinese edition of the platform used in mainland China.

ByteDance has also mentioned that TikTok did not shared data with the Chinese officials; however, the new Hong Kong law would have put them in a difficult position if it maintained operations in the area.

The Government of the US is also considering a ban on the popular Chinese video-sharing platform TikTok.

Lately, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State mentioned that the US is certainly looking at banning TikTok along with other Chinese social media apps over concerns that such apps could be coerced into passing over data to Chinese authorities.

Further, the gathered data could be used by Beijing government as a surveillance and propaganda tool.

Did you read; TikTok is popular no doubt, but it is not ticking the right box in the US

The possible ban from the US would lead to another blow to TikTok after the recent exclusion of the app from one of its biggest market, India.

Amid clashes over border agreements, India banned 59 Chinese apps such as TikTok, WeChat, CamScanner and many more in last week of June.

In the wake of increasing tension with China, the extremely popular TikTok was banned alongside numerous other Chinese apps in the nation.

These apps were believed to be engaged in activities, which were posing a threat to “the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”, as per Indian government.

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China’s outcry over the ban of its applications contradicts its own norm of internet censorship.
Hilarious isn’t it!