你所不知道的推特反华回声室丨Twitter's anti-China algorithm
回声室效应(echo chamber)，是指在一个相对封闭的环境里，一些意见相近的声音不断重复，并以夸张或其他扭曲形式重复，令处于相对封闭环境中的大多数人认为这些扭曲的故事就是事实的全部。
When Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the violent protests that have raged in Hong Kong for months, he probably did not foresee a huge backlash from China.
After the tweet, later deleted, had seriously hurt the feelings of many Chinese NBA fans and triggered fierce criticism from Chinese basketball organizations, media outlets and commercial partners, the general manager of Houston Rockets on Oct 7 tried to explain in a follow-up tweet, "I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives."
Morey may not just be making excuses.
Living in the filter bubble based on what Twitter's anti-China algorithm decides is the "truth", ordinary users without better judgment can hardly see the whole picture of what's going on in Hong Kong and may easily take in one-sided viewpoints as "news".
Anti-China echo chamber on Twitter
Social media platforms like Twitter have long been accused of failing their users by creating echo chambers that filter opposing opinions and fuel polarization.
People use social media platforms on a daily basis to see the world, but the platforms are powered by algorithms that leave them out of touch with reality.
A study released by the Pew Research Center in April found that the world constructed by Twitter feeds is not even close to the real world, as about 80 percent of all the tweets shown on timelines are created by the most active 10 percent of users. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted at a Wired magazine event in 2018, "I think Twitter does contribute to filter bubbles and I think that's wrong of us."
When it comes to deciding whose voices matter, Twitter picks a side, and it has even stopped hiding.
After Twitter's vice-president of public policy, Colin Crowell, met with the Hong Kong activists who flew to Washington to seek political support in September, the social media platform proclaiming neutrality can no longer fool the world with its "free speech" slogans.
Crowell retweeted a post published by one of the activists he met, Denise Ho, of thanking him and his team for "the good work in making people's voices heard". While three days before the retweet, Twitter suspended 4,301 accounts originating in China, following a purge in August that wiped out 936 Chinese accounts that, according to the "examples of violative content" the platform provided, denounced the violence and vandalism of masked rioters in Hong Kong.
▲ Song Chen/China Daily
Whose voices matter to Twitter? It's more than clear.
By suppressing Chinese accounts in the name of curbing state-backed information operations, Twitter is in effect creating an anti-China echo chamber.
Twitter said that it will continue enforcing its content policing policies "to serve the public conversation" in a blog post published after it silenced nearly 1,000 Chinese accounts for "deliberately and specifically attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong". The problem is how there could be any conversation when only a one-sided view on the ongoing Hong Kong unrest is allowed to be heard on the platform?
Voices of Hong Kong rioters hyping up "freedom" or "democracy" to seek foreign political support are turned up on Twitter. Meanwhile, the voices of the majority of Hong Kong residents condemning violent protests and calling for an end of chaos are deleted by the platform. Inside this anti-China echo chamber, ill-informed users have no access to exchanges of different views but the results of Twitter's censorship.
Political angle in Twitter's anti-China algorithm
Algorithms should not take all the blame, because deep down there is a political angle in Twitter's anti-China algorithm.
Apart from his own meeting with leading Hong Kong activists, Colin Crowell retweeted both of the activists Nathan Law and Denise Ho's posts of meeting US Democratic Senator Ed Markey, to whom Crowell was a longtime staffer before he joined Twitter in 2011.
Ed Markey is one of the increasing numbers of US politicians that have meddled in the current Hong Kong situation, despite the fact that it is China's internal affair and no foreign forces have the right to interfere. Markey went further by tabling a new bill with Republican Senator Ted Cruz in June to amend the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992. The act, abolished in 2007, "allows" the US government to evaluate the extent of Hong Kong's autonomy each year and Beijing criticized it as evidence of US interference.
Many politicians have relied on Twitter to influence the public. Among Twitter's myriad connections to US politicians, the one to US President Donald Trump is undoubtedly the most remarkable for the simple fact that the outspoken president and his active followers have arguably saved the once ailing social media platform from dying.
Back to 2015 while the once-ousted Jack Dorsey become Twitter CEO again, the company he helped create was "much worse than it appears", as said by industry analysts. The number of tweets per day dropped to about 300 million in January 2016 from its peak of 661 million in August 2014. Dorsey was facing a dire prospect until Donald Trump came with his successful Twitter campaign in 2016.
Twitter has played an unprecedented role in Donald Trump's governance, as the US President has basically used his Twitter account as his personal megaphone, whether on domestic issues or foreign affairs. The social media platform, in the meantime, reported a profit in the first and second half of 2018, compared to a loss a year ago. Since the end of its 2015 fiscal year, Twitter has added 31 million monthly active users as of the end of March 2018.
The US President's unpredictable tweets have caused massive controversy time and again. Meanwhile Twitter, which proclaims it holds all accounts to the same standards on its content policies, has for years turned a blind eye to violations of its own rules prohibiting hateful or other violating content by US government officials, including the US president, in the name of "newsworthiness".
Biased Twitter algorithm sheds light on Western hostility
Jack Dorsey has repeatedly told the news media that Twitter is committed to becoming a "public space", citing the company's effort to avoid political bias by building on its "fair" algorithm. However, his words are misleading and barely convince many groups who face censorship on the platform.
Public spaces "don't have algorithms that surface certain content; they don't have an advertising-based business model meant to drive engagement; they don't generate billions of dollars of revenue," said Becca Lewis, a social media researcher for Data & Society who pointed out the hypocrisy of social media platforms pretending to be serving public conversations.
Twitter, like many other companies in Silicon Valley, hides behind its "fair" algorithm, allows human decisions to get reflected in the algorithm, and discourages people from conversing about their opinions. As a result, it is fathomable that biases against China are enhanced in the anti-China echo chamber on the platform.
Western media outlets often castigate China in apparent ignorance of the values gap. Fear of being taken over by China's rise and hubris about their political system are noticeable everywhere in their reports. What's not mentioned in their narratives is China's reiteration on its peaceful development path and the popularity enjoyed by its government.
The Western media fail to recognize their own prejudices and keep promulgating hostility toward China. Take the Hong Kong unrest for instance. Protesters' occupation of the airport and obstruction of passenger check-in areas are glossed over as "peaceful". Police use of force is amplified as "brutality" even when they have exercised restraint and tolerance. The city's police force was widely respected and trusted.
Given the regularity of protests in the city, The Atlantic once described Hong Kong police as "expert in crowd management". Ironically this time, the Western media denounced them as "perpetrators" of the government because they do not share the police's stance.
In selectively exaggerating what they want to report and neglecting what they do not want to report, Western media outlets, colluding with social media networks like Twitter, manipulate public attention on Hong Kong in disregard of facts.
Since Morey's tweet, the Western media has chased after the NBA for comments on Hong Kong protests that suit their narrative — without much success.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who has been vocal on human rights issues including gun violence in the US, said he was uncomfortable to comment on matters he doesn't understand.
Kerr compared the current issues in Hong Kong to the rampant gun violence problems in the US. "People in China didn't ask me about, you know, people owning AR-15s and mowing each other down in a mall," he said at a news conference on Oct 11.
The fallout of Morey's ignorant tweet should have introduced him to the other side of the Hong Kong protests. Does Morey now know that the violence of Hong Kong rioters was deliberately hidden from users like him on Twitter?
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