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by supriyo-biswas 548 days ago
"Doesn't censor content" is probably not describing the situation correctly; while some companies like Google have typically resisted such in the aughts, they regularly take requests from other countries of this sort, and it'd be very simple for them to reenter the China market by having a stance similar to what they have for other countries.

The issue here is probably caused by the requirement for an ICP recordal which requires removal of violating user-generated content within 15 minutes, which is probably a very tight deadline, probably coupled with a strong false positive rate which is why said companies are also hesitant to introduce automation.

It could also be argued that Tiktok is not completely value-aligned with US interests, although this has not been provably shown and whatever we have thus far is speculative.
3 comments
hiddencost 548 days ago
Google tried to, but failed due to employee revolt:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

Microsoft Bing has been merrily operating in China for a very long time: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-03-07/microsoft...

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tw1984 548 days ago
and it is the top1 desktop search engine in China, way ahead of baidu.com.
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est 548 days ago
> ICP recordal which requires removal of violating user-generated content

And the reason behind that? Copy from other comments, "So China can't spy on Americans and astroturf propaganda", swap China/America

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supriyo-biswas 548 days ago
> Copy from other comments, "So China can't spy on Americans and astroturf propaganda"

The Chinese versions of these services are walled off from the rest of the world (otherwise the ICP license probably ends up applying to the worldwide service), so this is not even a plausible explanation.

Further, asserting that the requirements imposed by the ICP recordal as being equivalent to following laws in other democracies is laughable; since most democracies make considerations towards good faith motives towards following a law even though there might be misses otherwise, not to mention the kind of content being censored.

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est 548 days ago
this is why I don't like online political arguments, it always come down to faith and infidels
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fidotron 548 days ago
Try releasing a mobile news app in the US and see how it goes.

Even one that just scrapes Yahoo or something.

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