After the stabbing, social media firms in China face scrutiny over hate speech | Technology

Taichung, Taiwan – For one user on the Chinese social media platform, Weibo, the problem was Americans.

“British people make me worry too, but I hate Americans,” read one user’s comment.

For one, it was the Japanese.

“I really hope the Japanese die,” the user repeated 25 times in the post.

National Nealounistics and Hyper-Naturastic comments are not easy to come to Chinese social media platforms, even after some major technology firms last year promised to crack down on hate attacks following the knife attacks on Japanese and American nationals in the country.

Since the summer, there have been at least four foreign detentions in China, including the September incident in which a 10-year-old Japanese schoolgirl was killed in Shenzhen.

This attack, which took place on the day of the celebration of the false flag ceremony organized by the Japanese military personnel to explain the attack on Manchuria, encouraged the Japanese Government to seek an explanation from the Chinese and to confirm that it could do more to protect Japan’s national.

After the incident, some Japanese companies asked to bring their workers and their families home.

Months ago, the knife attack that harmed the American teachers in the Jilin-China relationship, we also urge R. Nicholas Burns Suspecting the Chinese authorities that this event, including the motivation of the attacker.

Beijing, while expressing regret for the attack and offering condolences to the families of the victims, insisted that the country’s stabbing was dangerous.

“Similar crimes can happen in any country,” a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry told a regular press conference after the attack in Shenzhen.

While China’s foreign ministry and the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo did not respond to requests for comment, said a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. bought the law on “ethnic discrimination, violence, violence and other information”.

“The Chinese government has always opposed any form of discrimination and hate speech, and has organized in all sectors of society to jointly maintain order and security in cyberspace,” a spokesperson for the company told Al Jazeera.

While violence against foreigners in China is rare, the apparent emergence of attacks in 2024 and the rise of hate speech have caused concern within the country, said Zhang Zichen, former founder of PEKIngnology magazine.

“It has organized domestic discussions about this kind of speech and how to stop it,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

Despite the promises of Chinese tech companies to crack down on hate speech against foreigners, such content is not correct, according to Andrew Deniject, PhD Student at Tulane University in the US who deals with Chinese politics.

“Very since [tech] Companies have an incentive not to regulate hate speech,” Devine told Al Jazeera.

While the algorithms used by Chinese Media Fisys to distribute content are shared with the Chinese government, they have not been disclosed to the public, making it difficult to know the exact pattern of the preceding speech.

Elena Ying ho, an independent research analyst specializing in Propaganda and social media in China, said that the algorithms used by Chinese social media platforms will not lose to those used by foreign platforms.

“They want to increase engagement among users on their platforms, and they want users to stay on their site as long as possible,” Ho told Al Jazeera.

In the hunt for users’ attention, it may be beneficial for Chinese bloggers and vloggers to find controversial and ethnic content, Ho said.

In today’s China, a perceived lack of patriotism can lead to civil war.

Last year, China’s Nongfu spring water company was pulled from En Masse stores after social media users said the logo displayed Mount Fuji in Japan.

The condemnation on the Internet spread to the owner of the company, Zhong Shanshan, who was loyal to China when asked, the case increased that his son increased to become American citizens.

In 2023, rocks and eggs were thrown at two Japanese schools in Qingdao and Suzhou after Tokyo decided to release the water from Fukushima Etweni into the sea.

Wang said the increase in negative comments about foreigners on Chinese Social Media was the result of growing hostility between China and other countries.

“China’s relations with other countries have deteriorated significantly in recent years,” Wang said.

China and Japan have gone through many historical and territorial disputes, including the status of the Diayu / Island Islands in the East China Sea.

The US and China have also seen their relationship plummet in recent years amid disputes ranging from trade and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic to Beijing’s claims of ownership in Taiwan.

But hate speech against foreigners predates some of these recent conflicts, according to Ho.

“And Japan and Japan have always been targets,” he said.

Some Chinese bloggers and social media users have followed the feelings of misunderstanding of the Japanese people in what they promise to be a “hate education” about Japan, including its imperialist oppression in China.

Wang said Japan’s actions during World War II deeply affected the Chinese National psyche.

“Japan launched attacks in the second world war where several tens of millions of Chinese people died, and that remains in the minds of the Chinese people,” he said.

“For some people, there is a feeling that the Japanese are not made enough to do that for themselves.”

However, some Chinese citizens argue that Japanese atrocities should not be used to explain the hateful feeling in Japanese people today.

“I think we need to change the way we deal with the past if we want to see less hate speech,” Tina Wu, a 29-year-old communications manager in Shanghai, told Al Jazeera.

While hate speech is not just a problem on the Chinese Internet, social media platforms in China, unlike those in the US, operate in a sensitive environment where crashes on sensitive topics are a regular occurrence.

China has the largest Internet environment in the world

In 2020, more than 35,000 names related to the Chinese President XI Jinping alone were put under request, according to the China Digital Times.

Devine said that while some hateful commenters are subject to public scrutiny, content that confirms the official position of the Chinese government is likely to be removed.

He said he did not believe that promises by Chinese companies to crack down on xenophobia and hate speech would do much to change the proliferation of such content.

“At the same time, tech companies want to avoid making more money to cool it,” he said.

Regardless of the motivation, social media platforms with more than a billion users cannot eliminate all examples of hate speech, Wang said.

“There’s so much detail and so much more being added all the time that there’s no way to finish or finish it all,” she said.

“Even the Chinese’s analytical skills have their limits.”

Wang said he hoped that China’s recent friendly exchanges with other countries and its growing power and influence throughout the country would lead to a fight against such anti-national sentiments.

“China should have the confidence to enter the future with a greater sense of security and self-confidence instead of being restricted by the memories of the past,” he said.

WU from Shanghai similarly said it hopes to see some reforms to China’s prominent policies, especially those related to foreigners.

“It’s a big part of the Chinese story now that we’re always victims of foreign abuse,” he said.

“And as long as that continues to be a strong message, I’m afraid there will be more attacks on foreigners in China.”