China: Tech giants revealed their algorithms to the government  

Alibaba and ByteDance some of them

Algorithms decide what users will see and in what order and is of course the most important thing for social media platforms. They are the best-kept secret of tech companies in the US as well, with Meta and Alphabet having repeatedly refused to share information with the government on the grounds that it is a trade secret.

In China, of course, things are a little different. The country’s Cyberspace Administration (CAC) has released a list of the descriptions of 30 algorithms from the country’s tech giants, saying the list will be constantly updated to tackle data abuse.

The algorithm of an e-commerce website owned by Alibaba is also on the list, with the description stating that it ” recommends products or services to users through their digital footprint and data from their search history “.

The description of ByteDance’s Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, states that it ” monitors the user’s interests based on the clicks he makes, where he comments and where he presses like and dislike “.

It does not appear that the algorithms themselves have been filed. Each of them has been given a protocol number so that the CAC can focus its efforts on a particular algorithm. The question is what is the next step in determining whether an algorithm actually does what it promises. – Kendra Schaefer, head of technology policy research at Trivium China

However, Zhai Wei of East China University is sure that the data contains many more details that cannot be disclosed to the public as they contain trade secrets. Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu have yet to offer a statement.

China adopted new laws on algorithms in March, allowing users to opt out of their data for algorithms to generate recommendations.

I don’t know of any other country in the world where you can see a list of all the pieces of code that actually drive you to make the decisions you make, the purchases you make, and what you’re going to see.