Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - China's top internet watchdog said on Friday that tech giants like Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Gr...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - China's top internet watchdog said on Friday that tech giants like Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group have given information about algorithms used in some of their products. This is in response to a push by the government to tighten control over platform algorithms.
Beijing is putting a lot of rules on its once-free-wheeling technology sector, and these rules are a big part of that. State media had said that internet platforms used algorithms to invade the privacy of their users and make them choose certain things.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) put out a list of 30 algorithms that are used in some of China's most popular apps, like Alibaba's Taobao, Tencent's Wechat, Meituan, and ByteDance's Douyin. The list included short descriptions of how the algorithms work and a number to classify them.
It was the first list China put out after passing new rules for algorithm recommendation services in March and starting a filing system that requires companies to say what algorithms they use in their apps.
On the CAC's list, it said that the Taobao app had logged a recommendation algorithm that used each user's visit and search history to suggest products and services, and that Meituan had given details about the algorithm it used to estimate delivery times and match riders.
On the list were also the Chinese search engine Baidu, the platform for short videos Kuaishou, and the microblogging site Sina's Weibo.
