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ByteDance filtered anti-China posts on the Indonesian news platform
Chinese software firm ByteDance blocked media criticizing the Chinese government for news gathering applications in Indonesia before the middle of 2020, Reuters announced Thursday.
In 2018, ByteDance acquired the Indonesian news gathering device Baca Berita (BaBe) after the country temporarily forbade the tech giant's video streaming site TikTok. Shortly after ByteDance 's acquisition of BaBe, the app moderators were told to censor important material from the Chinese government. News relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations or Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People's Republic of China, was deleted from the web, according to Reuters.
In our early days, before we were able to take the more regional approach that we are using today, BaBe had certain balance methods in place that were not aligned with our ideology of letting the Indonesian team determine what is suitable for its business, the BaBe spokesperson said Thursday to The Verge. These directives were repealed in 2019, and since then we have developed and encouraged local management teams to make decisions that suit the local environment.
While the Reuters article only applies to anti-China web filtering in ByteDance's news platform, TikTok has been on fire in recent months for reportedly deleting videos that are also disparaging the Chinese government. For the year 2019,
The Guardian claimed that TikTok editors have been ordered to delete material that references Tiananmen Square, Tibetan liberation, and related videos.
At the time, TikTok said that its information and censorship practices are led by our US-based staff and are not affected by any foreign government. The spokesperson added, The Chinese government does not recommend that TikTok regulate material and will have no authority whatsoever because TikTok does not work there.
Nevertheless, TikTok 's comments could not dispel the fears of lawmakers including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) that the highly successful social media site would not block posts that attacked China.
Rubio sent a letter to the Committee on Foreign Investment asking that it begin an investigation into the possible national security threats posed by the US App.
Tensions intensified earlier this month when President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning any dealings with ByteDance in order to tackle the global emergency in relation to the supply chain of information and communication technologies. The order is scheduled to come into effect on 20 September.
