China’s New Rules for Algorithms

A set of draft rules released by the Cyberspace Administration of China, to regulate algorithm-empowered recommendation activities on the internet, are congruent with the demands made by civil societies worldwide and more substantive than the actions proposed or taken by the governments in western liberal democracies.

On 27 August 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) released a set of draft rules to regulate the “algorithm-empowered recommendation activities on the internet.”

“Algorithm-empowered recommendation activities” refer to many automated phenomena we experience in using the internet today. When we search for an item on Amazon, an algorithm decides which brands show up first in the search results. When we open Twitter, an algorithm decides which tweets we see. An algorithm shows us advertisements on various websites according to our browsing patterns. These rules govern the deployment of all such algorithms used for search rankings, filtering, personalised recommendations, decision-making, etc.