So Which Algorithms Do the Chinese Regulators Have?

Back in January, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), in coordination with several other regulatory bodies, enshrined a new policy to regulate how algorithms are used in Chinese Internet companies. Seven months later, the CAC made its first public announcement of which companies have submitted which of their algorithms to be registered.

This announcement is quite monumental, because it marks the first time a major regulatory body (as far as I know, please keep me honest!) has gained access to the algorithms that power the tech products within its jurisdiction. (The EU is trying to do the same.)

Given this significance, let’s take a look at which companies and products are on the CAC’s list and (arguably more interesting) which ones are not! You can view the CAC’s full list (in Chinese) HERE, which I pulled out of the official announcement into a publicly accessible Google Doc.

List of Companies and Products

Here is the current list of companies and corresponding products or services that have submitted their algorithms to the CAC:

• Netease news app
• Yidian Wangju search engine
• Qihoo360 search engine
• Phoenix TV news app
• Zhaopin's recruiting app
• Weibo
• Meituan's delivery, logistics, driver-routing service
• Youku
• Kuaishou
• Baidu's suite of news, wiki, pictures, and search apps
• Sina news app
• ByteDance's Douyin, Xigua, Toutiao apps
• Xiaomi's browser
• Leipin's recruiting app
• Fengniao's last mile logistics service app
• Qinbaobao: an app for baby pictures and videos sharing for family
• Alibaba's Tmall, Taobao, DingTalk, Caijiao logistics
• Hisense's smart TV app
• Suning shopping app
• Futu's stock trading app
• Tencent's WeChat and news app

These products are broken down into the following five use case categories:

• Personalization and Content Pushing (个性化推送类)
• Search and Filter (检索过滤类)
• Ranking and Featuring (排序精选类)
• Dispatch Decision Making (调度决策类)
• Content Generating and Synthesizing (生成合成类)

As you can see, most of these use cases are related to how ordinary Internet users find information and are influenced by how algorithms push or rank certain information over others. It is not surprising that regulators are interested in how algorithms are applied in these situations. The “Content Generating and Synthesizing” stands out as an angle of concern that the government has for understanding (and preventing) fake, algorithmically generated content or “deepfake”.

Digging One Level Deeper

There are a couple of interesting issues I spotted on the CAC list that are worth expanding upon:

Douyin, Kuaishou, and Impact on TikTok: while it is not surprising that both Douyin and Kuaishou – two competing apps in the short-video social network space – registered their respective algorithms, the fact that they are registered under two different categories deserve a call out. Douyin is registered under the “Personalization and Content Pushing” category. Kuaishou, on the other hand, is registered under both the “Personalization and Content Pushing” and “Content Generating and Synthesizing” categories. The latter category specifically notes functionalities that apply algorithmic models to generate various visual effects to help users produce pictures and videos. Now, we all know that Douyin offers the same type of features for its users, yet that algorithm is not registered. This departure signals a different posture between ByteDance and Kuaishou toward regulators.

Furthermore, now that the CAC has information on Douyin’s personalization algorithm, it also effectively has TikTok’s algorithm as well. Even though TikTok is a US entity that does not need to answer to the CAC, it is well-known that ByteDance shares its algorithms as a middleware across its family of apps – Douyin’s secret sauce is also TikTok’s secret sauce. The implication on TikTok of the CAC having information on its algorithm could be quite consequential to its future in the US, where its trustworthiness and reputation have been deteriorating (see my previous post on this topic: “TikTok's American Credibility Problem”).

DingTalk: Alibaba’s cloud-based workplace product, DingTalk, stands out as the only enterprise SaaS on this list. It is also a bit curious that DingTalk’s algorithm is registered under the “Content Generating and Synthesizing” category, pertaining to its voice-to-text functionality. The only other algorithm in this category is from Kuaishou, as applied to the AI-generated visual effects I just mentioned. DingTalk is by no means a viral social media app or a source of “deepfake” dissemination, but Alibaba seems to be proactive and extra obedient in complying with the CAC, by going above and beyond to register DingTalk. This makes the absence of competing products from Tencent (WeCom aka WeChat Enterprise) and ByteDance (Lark) rather conspicuous. This “compliant” posture could amend and even strengthen Alibaba’s relationships with various regulators, which it needs to expand its cloud business with the government and other highly-regulated sectors, all of which are growing their cloud adoption.

Noteworthy Missing Companies

Speaking of conspicuously missing products, WeCom and Lark are not the only ones. Many companies and products that you would expect to be on the CAC list are not. Here are the “missing ones” that I find most noteworthy and most inconsistent, given which products are already on the list:

• Ridesharing apps, like Didi, Caocao, T3, etc: The core of these services are algorithmic dispatch and route-optimization applications, very similar to the algorithms submitted by Alibaba’s Caijiao, Meituan’s driver-routing app, and Fengniao’s last mile logistics service.
• JD, Pinduoduo: with Taobao, Tmall, and Suning’s registration, it is quite glaring to see JD and Pinduoduo not on the list.
• Huawei: similar to Hisense’s smart TV, Huawei also has its own brand of smart TV called Vision S. Given Huawei’s close relationship with the government, it may be receiving special treatment and less scrutiny than other tech companies.
• BiliBili: with Youku (owned by Alibaba) registering its algorithm, BiliBili being missing is noteworthy given that it is the more dominant video platform.
• Zhihu: UGC question and answer websites, like Zhihu, do not have a direct comparison on the CAC list – the most analogous products are probably news apps or search engines. Nevertheless, Zhihu is a popular and trusted destination, where Chinese Internet users search for information and contribute content.
• Self-driving companies, like XPeng, NIO, Baidu, etc: given that most self-driving capabilities are still in the experimental stage, asking self-driving companies to submit their algorithms may be premature. Also, self-driving technology has more strategic value on the nation-level, certainly compared to algorithms that surface trendiest online shopping items, so it may simply be receiving less scrutiny than other use cases, for now.

The CAC said it will continue to update this list, as more companies register their algorithms. Thus, over time, these “missing” companies may all have a registration or two eventually. What will also be interesting to watch is what happens after an algorithm is registered and how often do these registrations need to be updated. After all, algorithms change and evolve constantly.

By publishing this list and gaining access to algorithms that are powering a significant portion of the Chinese Internet, the CAC is breaking new grounds in how tech companies ought to be regulated. It is hard to tell whether this way is the right way, but it is certainly a way.