Social media algorithms decide what users see and the order in which they access certain content. China wants people to understand what determines what they find on a website. Internet and why some posts are chosen to appear over others.
For the first time, Chinese technologies such as ByteDance, owner of TikTok, or Alibaba shared details about its algorithms with the Chinese regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). Thus, a list was published containing descriptions of 30 algorithms – including six from Alibaba, one from ByteDance, two from Tencent and three from Baidu – and which will be updated periodically to try to contain data abuse, the BBC reports Tuesday.
Through the shared list online and analyzed by the international press, it can be seen that the shopping site Taobao —owned by Alibaba— “recommends products or services to users through their fingerprint” and search history data. Algorithms not only determine what content each person has access to, but also serve to guide decisions in online commerce. For example, Alibaba selects the content someone has access to also taking into account the purchases made by that person or the sales volume of each product.
On the other hand, ByteDance measures the interest of people who use Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok) through an algorithm that takes into account user clicks, the duration of the videos they watch, what they comment on, what content they post “I like” and others. data from the history of use of this social network.
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Source: Observadora
