INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
There worrying news from China online media world as ByteDance, the $75 billion company behind popular video app TikTok is taking a news
site to court for alleged defamation after it published a story about ByteDance fake news problem in India.
U.S
tech firms have come to rely on media to help uncover issues, butChinese tech news site Huxiu has become the latest litigation target of
ByteDance, which reportedly surpassed Uber valuation after raising $3 billion
The company has sued internet giants Tencent and Baiduin the past year for alleged anti-competitive behavior.
This time around, ByteDance
— which is backed by SoftBank Vision Fund, KKR and General Atlantic among others —has taken issue with an op-ed published earlier this
month that spotlights a fake news problem on its Indian language news app, Helo.
Launched in July as part of ByteDance push in India, Helo
competes with local media startups such asXiaomi-backedShareChat and DailyHunt as well as Facebook
ByteDance operates news app Jinri Toutiao with over 250 million monthly active users in China, according to data services provider
TikTok, branded asDouyin in China, has a reach well beyond its home front and claims 500 million MAUs worldwide with an additional 100
million usersgleaned from its Musical.ly buyout.
&An insult and abuse&
On December 4, Huxiu published an opinion piece that condemned Helo
and ShareChat for allowing misinformation to spread
One Helo post, for instance, falsely claimed that a Congress leader had suggested that India should help neighboring rival Pakistan clear
its debt rather than invest in the State of Unity, a pricey local infrastructure project.
In response, ByteDane filed a lawsuit against
Huxiu, saying that the Chinese news site made defamatory statements against it in translating an op-ed by contributor Elliott Zaagman.Tech
blog TechNode — TechCrunch partner in China — ran an edited English version of the story but it is not part of the suit.
Zhang Yiming,
founder of ByteDance, poses for a photograph at the company headquarters in Beijing, China
Photographer: Giulia Marchi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
&Technode edited the piece and removed some of my words
Huxiu was, and is with most of my articles, true to my original words,& Zaagman wrote on his WeChat timeline.
To adhere only to &facts& as
part of its editorial process, TechNode removed &colorful& parts of Zaagman article, according to the blog editor-in-chief.
What goes
missing on TechNode is what incensed ByteDance
Zaagman unfiltered statements on Huxiu &constitute an insult and abuse against ByteDance& by &claiming that Chinese companies have influence
over the Indian election,& a ByteDance spokesperson told TechCrunch.
&The content on Huxiu is obviously a rumor and libel
Whether it Chinese or foreign publications, Chinese or foreign authors, they must respect the truth, laws, and principles of journalism,&
the spokesperson added.
The unedited English version is posted on Zaagman personal LinkedIn account here
Here is one paragraph that TechNode removed:
Maybe still Zhang is simply a victim of his own success
Few entrepreneurs start a company expecting it to be worth $75 billion
But what he has created may have far broader ramifications
As is demonstrated by Russia use of American social networking platforms to interfere in Western elections, misinformation campaigns can be
a tool used by adversaries to disrupt a country internal politics
At this current moment when China faces greater international tensions, a pushback to their rising influence in Asia, and territorial
disputes along their border with India, the last thing that Beijing needs is accusations from an opportunistic Indian politician sounding
the alarm about how Beijing-based Chinese companies are spreading misinformation among the impressionable Indian electorate….
And this as
well:
Although, on second thought, maybe it makes perfect sense that Zhang Yiming is peddling products that he himself would likely never
After all, any good drug dealer knows not to get high on their own supply.
In a statement, Huxiu dismissed ByteDance accusationfor being
&wildly untrue& and bringing &major repercussions& for the online publication reputation.A spokesperson for Huxiu told TechCrunch thatit
hasn&t received any summons as the court is still processing the complaint.
In a peculiar twist to the incident, Huxiu actually pulled its
Chinese version of Zaagman piece days leading to the ByteDance suit
The removal came as a result of &negotiations among multiple parties,& said the Huxiu representative who declined to share more details on
In China, an online article can be subject to censorship for containing material considered illegal or inappropriate by the media platform
itself or the government.
The problem of AI
The logo for ByteDance popular video app TikTok (called Douyin in China) at an electronic dance
/ Credit: ByteDance
In the U.S., Facebook has responded proactively to issues raised by the media — for example by banning accounts that
stoke racial tension in Myanmar —while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey went so far as to suggest that journalists sniffing out issues on his
service is &critical& to the company
Beijing-based ByteDance hasn&t commented on the fake news problem highlighted in Zaagman article, but staff from its Indian regional
apppreviouslyacknowledged the presence of misinformation.
&We work very closely with our local content review and moderation team in
harnessing our algorithms to review and take down inappropriate content,& a Helo spokesperson told local newspaper Hindustan Times.
The
concerns about Helo are the latest blow for ByteDance, which has marketed itself as an artificial intelligence company delivering what users
want to see based on what their online interaction in the past
As has been the case with Western platforms, such as Google-ownedYouTube which also uses an algorithmto feed users videos that they favor,
the outcome can mean sensational and sometimes illegal content.
Along those lines, ByteDance focus on AIat the expense of significant
&human-led& editorial oversight has come in for criticism.
In July, the Indonesian government banned TikTokbecause it contained
&pornography, inappropriate content and blasphemy.& At home, Chinese media watchdogs have similarly slammed a number of the company other
content platforms, and regulators in the country went so far as toshutter its humor appfor serving &vulgar& content.
But ByteDance is hardly
the only tech company entangled in China increased media scrutiny
Heavyweights including Tencent, Baidu, and ByteDance archrival Kuaishou have also come under attack at various degrees for hosting content
deemed problematic by the authorities over the past year.
