Category: Tech

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Hong Kong Journalism Tech

32 YouTube Videos Cited as Court Is Asked to Ban ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ Protest Anthem

YouTube "Glory to Hong Kong"

That was the headline on a story that ran earlier this month. (I’m late in posting it here.)

It began:

HONG KONG—Government officials in the financial center are seeking a court order to block the dissemination online of a popular pro-democracy song, the first major legal challenge to U.S. tech companies such as Google over politically sensitive content on their platforms.

The Department of Justice applied to the city’s High Court for an injunction banning the broadcasting or distribution—including on the internet and any media accessible online—of the song “Glory to Hong Kong,” the government said Tuesday. The date for a court hearing hasn’t been set.

While the legal action doesn’t name any specific companies, Google has been swept up in a controversy over the song as authorities move to stifle dissent using a national security law imposed by China in the city almost three years ago. The government’s application for the court order includes links to 32 videos on Google’s YouTube related to the song.

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India Journalism Tech

YouTube Looking Into Gandhi’s Claim Political Videos in India Suppressed

WSJ YouTube India

That’s the headline on my latest story, an exclusive out Wednesday.

It begins:

YouTube’s chief executive said in an email that the company is looking into a claim by Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi that the Alphabet Inc. unit is suppressing his videos criticizing India’s ruling party and a billionaire who controls a conglomerate accused of wide-ranging fraud.

The March 25 email from YouTube’s Neal Mohan, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, came in response to a letter sent two weeks earlier from the leader of a group of overseas Indians who support Mr. Gandhi’s Congress party.

The letter, which was reviewed by the Journal, included data from Mr. Gandhi’s social-media team making the case that his videos related to “the issue of cronyism of the ruling government with one industrialist, Mr. Gautam Adani,” are receiving views that are significantly lower than YouTube analytics suggest they should be, and are being “suppressed, perhaps unwittingly and algorithmically.”

The data, which was reviewed by the Journal, showed that based on interactions such as likes on two videos alleging Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given special treatment to the company headed by Mr. Adani, the Adani Group, the videos should have received about 2.8 million views combined, but instead got less than a third of that.

The data also suggested Mr. Gandhi’s videos are receiving fewer views because they are now recommended less frequently to users via YouTube’s home page, the letter said.

“Thanks,” Mr. Mohan wrote in reply. “Team is taking a look,” he wrote, without elaborating.

Representatives for Alphabet Inc.’s Google and YouTube didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Representatives for the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Adani Group didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Journalism Tech

Google Halts Download of Chinese App Pinduoduo Over Security Concerns

Google Pinduoduo

That’s the headline on my latest story, out yesterday with my colleague Clarence Leong.

It begins:

Alphabet Inc.’s Google blocked downloads of e-commerce app Pinduoduo after versions of it not carried in its app store were found to contain malware, adding to security concerns about Chinese-developed apps.

The Pinduoduo app, which is owned by PDD Holdings Inc., has been suspended from Google Play over security concerns while it conducts an investigation, a Google spokesperson said Tuesday.

Google Play isn’t available to users in China, which is the biggest market for Pinduoduo, a popular e-commerce platform best known for offering deals for goods by banding consumers together. Android users in China can download apps from app stores operated by Chinese tech companies, such as Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Baidu Inc. Pinduoduo had around 750 million monthly active users during the first quarter of last year—the most recent figure released by the company.

Temu, a popular shopping app in the U.S., also run by PDD, hasn’t been affected and is still available to download, according to Google.

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Journalism Tech

Asian Startups’ Confidence in U.S. Banking Wanes After SVB Panic

SVB Asia

That was the headline on a story I wrote last week with my colleagues Raffaele Huang and Clarence Leong.

It began:

SINGAPORE—The failure of Silicon Valley Bank reverberated through startups and venture-capital firms from China to Singapore and India during a roller coaster few days that shook confidence in Asia over reliance on U.S. tech financing.

After frantic efforts trying to secure their money, some startup executives said the incident served as a warning despite U.S. authorities stepping in Sunday to shore up the bank’s customers.

“The SVB problem is an episode that reminds us to review our reliance on investment from the U.S.,” said Wang Guanyan, an executive of a Guangzhou, China-based startup that develops virtual-reality games.

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Journalism Tech

Meta Plans New Layoffs That Could Match Last Year’s in Scope

Meta cuts scoop

That was the headline on a March 10 scoop I wrote with my colleagues Jeff Horwitz, Salvador Rodriguez, and Sam Schechner.

(Mark Zuckerberg announced the cuts a few days later.)

The story began:

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is planning additional layoffs to be announced in multiple rounds over the coming months that in total would be roughly the same magnitude as the 13% cut to its workforce last year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The new cuts, the first wave of which is expected to be announced next week, are likely to hit non-engineering roles especially hard, the people said. The company is also expected to shut down some projects and teams in conjunction with these cuts.

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India Journalism Tech

YouTube, Facebook and Instagram Gave Platforms to Indian Cow-Protection Vigilante

Monu Manesar India

That was the headline on March 6 story I wrote with my colleague Jeff Horwitz. It began:

Monu Manesar, the alias of an Indian cow-protection influencer, has spent the past six years documenting his personal war against cattle smugglers on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

In openly violent posts that often clashed with the platforms’ stated content policies, his accounts livestreamed car chases of men suspected to be transporting beef or cows—an animal deeply revered in Hinduism. He and fellow vigilantes filmed themselves ramming vehicles, shooting out truck tires and trading gunfire with alleged smugglers. The posts included anti-Muslim slurs and trophy photos of captives bleeding from the head.

Human-rights organizations warned YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Meta Platforms Inc., parent of Facebook and Instagram, that the exploits posed a threat to human life and encouraged violence against Muslims. The Monu Manesar accounts stayed online and continued to rack up followers, however: 210,000 subscribers on YouTube and nearly 150,000 across Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.

Now police in India are investigating Monu Manesar—whose real name is Mohit Yadav, according to police—and his associates in the deaths of two alleged cow smugglers whose charred bodies were found on Feb. 16 in their burned-out vehicle. The episode has sparked new debate over such vigilantism in India and what role social-media platforms play in fomenting religious violence.

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Journalism Tech

Meta in Talks to Reboot China Business With VR Headsets

Meta Tencent VR China

That’s the headline on my latest story, out last Tuesday with my colleague Raffaele Huang. It begins:

Tencent Holdings Ltd. is in talks to sell Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.’s popular virtual-reality headset in China, home to the world’s biggest pool of internet users.

Tencent, China’s biggest videogame company, has proposed to Meta that it become the exclusive seller of Meta’s Quest 2 headsets in China, people familiar with the discussion said. Tencent has also sought to publish Chinese versions of existing videogames for the device, they said.

The discussions, which began in recent months, are still at an early stage and a deal might not be reached, some of the people said.

Among issues that would need to be addressed are how user data would be handled, whether global macroeconomic conditions would be right for a partnership, and whether any deal between two of the biggest tech companies in the U.S. and China could draw scrutiny from Washington and Beijing, the people said. The two companies would also face China’s tight regulations on videogames.

Currently, the headset and its apps aren’t officially available in China. People there can buy devices from parallel importers on e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Taobao and JD.com Inc., and set up the headsets and download apps with a virtual private network to bypass China’s internet firewall.

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Hong Kong Journalism Tech

Google Faces Pressure in Hong Kong Over Search Results for National Anthem

WSJ Hong Kong national anthem

That’s the headline on my latest story, out Tuesday. It begins:

HONG KONG—Google is under fire from officials and legislators in Hong Kong over a pro-democracy song that is showing up in search results for the national anthem, raising tensions between American tech giants and authorities as Beijing tries to spread patriotism in the city.

Two members of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing legislative council in recent days have joined the city’s chief secretary in criticizing the Alphabet Inc. unit for showing the song, “Glory to Hong Kong,” among its top results.

Hong Kong’s official anthem has been China’s “March of The Volunteers” since Beijing regained sovereignty over the former British colony 25 years ago. Antigovernment protesters in 2019 adopted “Glory to Hong Kong”—before the imposition of a national security law—and it has featured prominently on Google and YouTube since then.

That has led to confusion in recent weeks at sporting events when the protest anthem was played, angering local officials and triggering an investigation by the Hong Kong police’s organized crime bureau.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment, though the company has said its search results are determined by algorithms—not by human curation—and that results some might find objectionable can occur when search queries match text on webpages. The company says it only removes content that violates Google’s policies or specific legal obligations.

Last week, a third lawmaker staged a protest with several people at Google’s Hong Kong office. It was a rare show of anger against an American tech firm in a city where access to the internet—unlike in mainland China—has remained mostly unfettered. That is a key reason why global companies operate in the city.

Hong Kong’s No. 2 official, Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki, told media outlets in recent weeks that the government was discussing the search results with Google and its video platform, YouTube.

“It’s about dignity and respect,” said one of the lawmakers, Duncan Chiu.

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Journalism Tech

Kanye West Suspended From Twitter After Swastika Tweet

WSJ story on Kanye West Twitter suspension

That was the headline on my latest, a story out Friday with my colleague Sarah Needleman. It begins:

Twitter Inc. again suspended Kanye West’s account after the musician and designer posted a swastika in a tweet that the social-media platform’s owner, Elon Musk, said violated its rules.

Mr. West, who now legally goes by Ye and had recently returned from a previous Twitter suspension, on Thursday posted a picture of a swastika merged with the Star of David.

Asked on Twitter by a user to “fix Kanye please,” Mr. Musk replied: “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”

Mr. West’s account then began displaying a message saying it was suspended, with no tweets visible.

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Journalism Tech

Twitter Becomes Stage for China Protests Despite Ban by Beijing

WSJ story Twitter China protests

That was the headline on a story out Wednesday I wrote with my colleage Selina Cheng. It begins:

HONG KONG—Twitter is banned in China, but it is proving a critical platform for getting videos and images of protests occurring across the nation out to the rest of the world.

China’s robust internet censors have sprung into action to scrub domestic social media of photos and video streams showing demonstrations against harsh Covid restrictions, spurring citizens to circumvent the nation’s Great Firewall.

Twitter has been blocked in China since 2009, but people in the country are able to access it using virtual private networks, or VPNs, which disguise their locations. They can then send material via the platform’s messaging system to a handful of widely followed Twitter users, who in turn broadcast it globally.

One Twitter user who lives outside China and goes by the name of Li Laoshi, or Teacher Li, said he has been receiving more than a dozen messages per second with protest material at some points since public unrest erupted—the same number he used to get a day—so that he could repost them publicly.

“My daily routine is: wake up, post online, and feed my cat,” he said. The goal of the account, created in May 2020, is to record events that are subject to censorship in China, his profile states. It had more than 759,000 followers as of Wednesday, more than triple the number before protests began, according to social-media analytics site Social Blade.

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