Beijing’s internet censors have a new target: Echo chambers on social media

On Sunday, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s top internet regulator, gave tech firms three months to fix their algorithms. Censors took particular aim at practices that create “information cocoons,” where users only experience content that aligns with their own interests and preferences. Platforms must also stop using techniques that encourage overuse and addiction. 

Companies will have until the end of the year to conduct a self-inspection. Authorities will evaluate the results in January, and potentially demand further improvement by Feb. 14.

The wide-ranging order also took aim at discount pricing based on different demographics, and mistreatment of gig workers through measures like unrealistic delivery timetables. The regulator also encouraged platforms to ensure “healthy” content for both elderly users and children.

China’s digital economy is dominated by a handful of large companies, such as Alibaba, JD.com and PDD Holdings in e-commerce, or Tencent and ByteDance in the realm of social media. 

The Hang Seng Tech Index, which includes several Chinese tech companies, fell 0.3% on Monday. Some firms fell by even further: Tencent, operator of the ubiquitous messaging app WeChat, fell by 1.7%. E-commerce platform JD.com fell by 2.8%, while food-delivery provider Meituan dropped by 3.0%. (Not every tech firm did poorly: Alibaba rose 1.6% in Hong Kong trading)

Beijing officials routinely order these companies to alter their internal practices, such as by ordering social media platforms to suppress overly materialistic content. Regulators have also fined the country’s e-commerce giants, like Alibaba and Tencent, for monopolistic practices, such as forcing merchants to sell exclusively on one platform.

In recent years, researchers have focused on social media’s penchant for creating “echo chambers,” where users gravitate to platforms with content that aligns with their own political and cultural views. Recommendation algorithms serve up more of the same content to keep people hooked on the platform.

China’s social media platforms have also been accused of becoming an echo chamber. For example, a violent attack on a Japanese mother and child in Suzhou in late June was blamed on nationalistic rhetoric on Chinese social media platforms. A Chinese woman died trying to protect the victims from the attacker; In response, companies like Tencent and NetEase later cracked down on anti-Japanese content. 

Beijing censors are not the only ones frustrated with Big Tech. Last week, Zhong Shanshan, chair of bottled water company Nongfu Spring and China’s richest person by some measures, took aim at both PDD Holdings and ByteDance at separate events. 

First, Zhong complained about PDD Holdings’ use of aggressive discounting, damaging brands like Nongfu Spring. Then, at a later event, he demanded a personal apology from Bytedance founder Zhang Yiming for not suppressing a social media smear campaign against Nongfu Spring—rooted in an accusation that the bottled water company traded in Japanese imagery.