scholarly journals The Limits of Commercialized Censorship in China

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Hegemonic Discourse ◽  
Sina Weibo ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Large Databases ◽  
Principal Agent Problem ◽  
The Government ◽  
Media Company

Despite massive investment in China’s censorship program, internet platforms in China are rife with criticisms of the government and content that seeks to organize opposition to the ruling Communist Party. Past works have attributed this “openness” to deliberate government strategy or lack of capacity. Most, however, do not consider the role of private social media companies, to whom the state delegates information controls. I suggest that the apparent incompleteness of censorship is largely a result of principal-agent problems that arise due to misaligned incentives of government principals and private media company agents. Using a custom dataset of annotated leaked documents from a social media company, Sina Weibo, I find that 16% of directives from the government are disobeyed by Sina Weibo and that disobedience is driven by Sina’s concerns about censoring more strictly than competitor Tencent. I also find that the fragmentation inherent in the Chinese political system exacerbates this principal agent problem. I demonstrate this by retrieving actual censored content from large databases of hundreds of millions of Sina Weibo posts and measuring the performance of Sina Weibo’s censorship employees across a range of events. This paper contributes to our understanding of media control in China by uncovering how market competition can lead media companies to push back against state directives and increase space for counter-hegemonic discourse.

scholarly journals Who Not What: The Logic of China's Information Control Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Mary Gallagher ◽  
Blake Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Control ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Government Documents ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Open Discussion ◽  
The Government ◽  
Media Company

Abstract In this paper, we examine how the Chinese state controls social media. While social media companies are responsible for censoring their platforms, they also selectively report certain users to the government. This article focuses on understanding the logic behind media platforms’ decisions to report users or content to the government. We find that content is less relevant than commonly thought. Information control efforts often focus on who is posting rather than on what they are posting. The state permits open discussion and debate on social media while controlling and managing influential social forces that may challenge the party-state's hegemonic position. We build on Schurmann's “ideology and organization,” emphasizing the Party's goals of embedding itself in all social structures and limiting the ability of non-Party individuals, networks or groups to carve out a separate space for leadership and social status. In the virtual public sphere, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to apply these principles to co-opt, repress and limit the reach of influential non-Party “thought leaders.” We find evidence to support this logic through qualitative and quantitative analysis of leaked censorship documents from a social media company and government documents on information control.

An Experimental Study of Spammer Detection on Chinese Microblogs

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (11n12) ◽  
pp. 1759-1777
Author(s):  
Jialing Liang ◽  
Peiquan Jin ◽  
Lin Mu ◽  
Jie Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
User Behavior ◽  
Real Data ◽  
User Profile ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Sina Weibo ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Government ◽  
Hot Event

With the development of Web 2.0, social media such as Twitter and Sina Weibo have become an essential platform for disseminating hot events. Simultaneously, due to the free policy of microblogging services, users can post user-generated content freely on microblogging platforms. Accordingly, more and more hot events on microblogging platforms have been labeled as spammers. Spammers will not only hurt the healthy development of social media but also introduce many economic and social problems. Therefore, the government and enterprises must distinguish whether a hot event on microblogging platforms is a spammer or is a naturally-developing event. In this paper, we focus on the hot event list on Sina Weibo and collect the relevant microblogs of each hot event to study the detecting methods of spammers. Notably, we develop an integral feature set consisting of user profile, user behavior, and user relationships to reflect various factors affecting the detection of spammers. Then, we employ typical machine learning methods to conduct extensive experiments on detecting spammers. We use a real data set crawled from the most prominent Chinese microblogging platform, Sina Weibo, and evaluate the performance of 10 machine learning models with five sampling methods. The results in terms of various metrics show that the Random Forest model and the over-sampling method achieve the best accuracy in detecting spammers and non-spammers.

scholarly journals COVID -19- Infodemic overtaking Pandemic? Time to disseminate facts over fear

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2 (Supp)) ◽  
pp. 264-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Praveen Kulkarni ◽  
Sudhir Prabhu ◽  
Sunil Kumar ◽  
Balaji Ramraj
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
World Health ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Humanitarian Emergency ◽  
Global Epidemic ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
The Government ◽  
Health Organization

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a humanitarian emergency. World Health Organization (WHO) and National Governments are making their best efforts to prevent the spread of disease. But a global epidemic of misinformation which is rapidly spreading through social media platforms and other outlets is posing serious problem to the public health interventions. This rapid spread of all sorts of information pertaining to the epidemic which makes its solution difficult is termed as infodemic. Infodemic creates fear, confusion and stigmatization among people and makes them more vulnerable to practice the measures which are not evidence based and scientifically sound. Hence there is an urgent need to identify the source of misinformation and prevent them from further spreading. WHO and the government of India have taken several steps in controlling this problem but there is a need for active involvement of social media companies, professional bodies, health care providers and general public in identification of misinformation and combating its spread.

What’s next for social media companies? The digital regulatory scene in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-95
Author(s):  
Aslı Tunç
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Media Law ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
The Law ◽  
Draft Bill ◽  
Media Company

In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, on 9 April 2020, a draft bill was presented to fight against the spread of COVID-19 in Turkey. Eight articles were buried deep in the proposed legislation, which mostly included economic measures and aid packages, directly targeting any social media company that had a platform accessed by over one million users daily. Although the articles on social media were dropped from the parliamentary schedule on 14 April 2020 to make way for more urgent bills on the economy and health, the uncertainty regarding social media companies’ situation in the country remained. Then, on 29 July 2020, the new social media law, officially ‘The Law on Making Amendments to the Law on Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Combating Crimes Committed by Means of Such Publication’, numbered 7253 was adopted by the parliament. This article approaches this issue from the perspective of social media companies, specifically Facebook and Twitter, and analyses the post-Coronavirus digital scene and public policy attempts from the corporate point of view.

scholarly journals Public Sentiment on Chinese Social Media during the Emergence of COVID19

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingdan Lu ◽  
Jennifer Pan ◽  
Yiqing Xu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
Public Welfare ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Sina Weibo ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Aggressive Action ◽  
The Government ◽  
Personal Reflections

When COVID-19 first emerged in China, there was speculation that the outbreak would trigger public anger and weaken the Chinese regime. By analyzing millions of social media posts from Sina Weibo made between December 2019 and February 2020, we describe the contours of public, online discussions pertaining to COVID-19 in China. We find that discussions of COVID-19 became widespread on January 20, 2020, consisting primarily of personal reflections, opinions, updates, and appeals. We find that the largest bursts of discussion, which contain simultaneous spikes of criticism and support targeting the Chinese government, coincide with the January 23 lockdown of Wuhan and the February 7 death of Dr. Li Wenliang. Criticisms are directed at the government for perceived lack of action, incompetence, and wrongdoing—in particular, censoring information relevant to public welfare. Support is directed at the government for aggressive action and positive outcomes. As the crisis unfolds, the same events are interpreted differently by different people, with those who criticize focusing on the government’s shortcomings and those who praise focusing on the government’s actions.

scholarly journals An Analysis of the Themes of Refuting Rumors on China's Sina Weibo During the Period of Covid-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-179
Author(s):  
Difan Guo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Topic Model ◽  
Release Channel ◽  
Sina Weibo ◽  
News Release ◽  
System Disease ◽  
Study Find ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
The Government

From the end of 2019 to 2020, there were countless rumors on the Internet related to COVID-19 during the viral epidemic. This study analyzed how government Weibo, the official news release channel of government social media, refuted rumors on China's leading social media platform Sina Weibo during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in China. This study used the LDA topic model to model the Weibo text topic and obtain the topics of the rumors that the government Weibo defied. This study find that the five main topics of rumors presented in the anti-rumor Weibo are highly related to the operation of the social system, disease prevention and treatment, and social security.  

scholarly journals A Student of Year 12 in Harrow International School Hong Kong

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 260
Author(s):  
Nanqi Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Asymmetric Information ◽  
Moral Hazard ◽  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Financial Market ◽  
International School ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Principal Agent Problem ◽  
The Government

<p class="BodyA">George Akerlof introduced the idea that due to asymmetric information between the buyer and the seller in the lemons market, the market for second-hand vehicles will eventually go on the wane. Parallel to this argument, this essay discusses the extent of problem caused by information asymmetry in the financial market, with the most prominent issues being adverse selection, moral hazard and principal agent problem. Yet, with more regulation from the government and the market, some of these problems can be ameliorated, thus reducing the role that asymmetric information plays in the financial market.</p>

Uneven accountability in the wake of political violence

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mai Hassan ◽  
Thomas O’Mealia
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The State ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Archival Data ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Principal Agent Problem ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Government

The government faces a principal–agent problem with lower-level state officers. Officers are often expected to use the state coercive capacity endowed to them to politically benefit the government. But officers can shirk from the government’s demands. An officer’s actions during bouts of large-scale and highly visible electoral violence reveal the officer’s type, thereby providing the government with the information necessary to solve its principal–agent problem for the future. The government holds officers who used their authority to perpetuate incumbent-instigated violence accountable through positive rewards, while holding officers who used their authority to perpetuate opposition-instigated violence accountable through negative sanctions. We find evidence in support of the theory using micro-level archival data on 2,500 local officer appointments and fine-grained satellite data on the locations of violence in the aftermath of Kenya’s 2007 election. The Kenyan government was more likely to fire officials whose jurisdictions saw opposition-instigated violence that targeted government supporters. But we find the opposite result where violence was instigated by incumbent supporters: there, officers were less likely to be fired if violence occurred in their jurisdiction. Our results indicate that leaders can manipulate accountability processes after political violence to further politicize the state.

scholarly journals Capturing the Interplay between Risk Perception and Social Media Posting to Support Risk Response and Decision Making

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 5220
Author(s):  
Huiyun Zhu ◽  
Kecheng Liu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Sina Weibo ◽  
The Public ◽  
Risk Response ◽  
The Media ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Government

This research aims to capture the interplay between risk perception and social media posting through a case study of COVID-19 in Wuhan to support risk response and decision making. Dividing users on Sina Weibo into the government, the media, the public, and other users, we address two main research questions: Whose posting affects risk perception and vice versa? How do different categories of social media users’ posts affect risk perception and vice versa? We use Granger causality analysis and impulse response functions to answer the research questions. The results show that from one perspective, the government and the media on Sina Weibo play critical roles in forming and affecting risk perceptions. From another perspective, risk perception promotes the posting of the media and the public on Sina Weibo. Since government’s posting and media’s posting can significantly enhance the public’s perceptions of risk issues, the government and the media must remain vigilant to provide credible risk-related information.

EFFECT OF DIGITAL COMMUNITY TOWARDS DEMOCRACY PROCESS: DIGITAL PARTISIPATION ANALYSIS IN INDONESIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alih Aji Nugroho
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Digital Society ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Digital Community ◽  
The Government

The world is entering a new phase of the digital era, including Indonesia. The unification of the real world and cyberspace is a sign, where the conditions of both can influence each other (Hyung Jun, 2018). The patterns of behavior and public relations in the virtual universe gave rise to new social interactions called the Digital Society. One part of Global Megatrends has also influenced public policy in Indonesia in recent years. Critical mass previously carried out conventionally is now a virtual movement. War of hashtags, petitions, and digital community comments are new tools and strategies for influencing policy. This paper attempts to analyze the extent of digital society's influence on public policy in Indonesia. As well as what public policy models are needed. Methodology used in this analysis is qualitative descriptive. Data collection through literature studies by critical mass digital recognition in Indonesia and trying to find a relationship between political participation through social media and democracy. By processing the pro and contra views regarding the selection of social media as a level of participation, this paper finds that there are overlapping interests that have the potential to distort the articulation of freedom of opinion and participation. - which is characteristic of a democratic state. The result is the rapid development of digital society which greatly influences the public policy process. Digital society imagines being able to participate formally in influencing policy in Indonesia. The democracy that developed in the digital society is cyberdemocracy. Public space in the digital world must be guaranteed security and its impact on the policies that will be determined. The recommendation given to the government is that a cyber data analyst is needed to oversee the issues that are developing in the digital world. Regulations related to the security of digital public spaces must be maximized. The government maximizes cooperation with related stakeholders.Keywords: Digital Society; Democracy; Public policy; Political Participation

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