China threatens ban on search engine and apps in algorithm crackdown

Beijing is tightening internet controls, demanding no algorithm or mobile app shall endanger national security or be used to disseminate information.

China already has some of the world’s most restrictive controls over the internet. Picture: Getty Images

China is tightening internet controls by demanding that no algorithm or mobile app shall endanger national security or be used to disseminate information or encourage acts harmful to the state.

The Cyberspace Administration of China and three other government agencies have issued a new regulation, to take effect on March 1, banning internet companies from using any algorithm to “engage in illegal activities or spreading illegal information”.

Providers of algorithm services - including web search engines such as Google - are instead required to “adhere to the mainstream value orientation and actively promulgate positive energy”, according to the new rule.

The government - led by President Xi Jinping has proposed new rules to ban app providers from using “mobile apps to engage in activities to endanger state security’. Picture: AFP

Tech companies have developed sophisticated algorithms, or a set of rules, to amass data, to sort, to analyse information and to suggest certain products, results or news articles that may be of interest to their users. Businesses seek to profit from catering to their customers and understanding their spending habits.

“Algorithm discrimination and improper use of algorithm(s) such as using big data to raise prices and inducing addiction has profoundly affected the normal communication order, the market order and the social order,” the cyberspace administration said in a statement on its official site.

“It has brought challenges to maintaining the ideological safety, social equality and the rights of web users.”

Under the new rule, tech companies must identify “illegal and ill information” but present to their users “positive and mainstream value-oriented information”. They are also banned from generating fake news, spreading unauthorised news information and using algorithms to influence the public opinion.

In a separate move, the government has proposed new rules to ban app providers from using “mobile apps to engage in activities to endanger state security, disrupt the social order and infringe upon others’ rightful interests”.

If an app shall have new technologies or functions capable of influencing public opinions or mobilising the public, it must undergo a security evaluation, according to the proposal.

China already has some of the world’s most restrictive controls over the internet, and Beijing, after playing a catch-up game with technology, has in recent years become more proactive in regulating new technologies before they should pose any challenge to the party rule.

It also has put a new focus on data privacy, as Beijing sees big data as essential to state security. Earlier this week, the cyberspace administration issued a rule requiring platform companies with more than one million users to undergo security assessments before listing overseas. That rule will take effect in February.

The Times