When disinformation in Chinese pops up on US platforms like YouTube or Facebook, activists say it appears to be less actively censored than English content, a pattern that has also emerged. credited to other community in the United States use languages other than English, especially Spanish. While Meta and Twitter have both announced efforts to label misinformation in other languages, reports by whistleblowers and in the media suggest, censor disappointed in languages other than English. Elena Hernandez, a spokeswoman for YouTube, said the platform’s moderation team consists of people with expertise in Mandarin and Cantonese. Meta did not respond to a request for comment; Twitter did not comment.
Individuals like Less, and small grassroots groups, aim to fill the void but with limited resources. More established nonprofits are more profitable but often promote liberal causes and can be seen as partisan and biased. Unlike those who work against misinformation distributed in English, there is no ready source of reports from trusted news websites, fact-checking sites or government publications. government to guide people. Non-English publications in the United States, which often serve specific ethnic groups, are often not staffed with political expertise.
The misleading political posts in Chinese come from a variety of sources and include views from left and right — although researchers report that rise in far-right content as of 2020. Well-funded media outlets affiliated with the US far-right, such as GTV Media Group and Epoch Media Group, produce original but super-party content in Chinese. Other accounts shared misinformation that appeared to aim to monetize clicks by translating the kind of extremist content that also went viral into English.
On YouTube, self-styled broadcasters have become the core news source for some Chinese speakers in the US, providing hot political content that often leads to misinformation, said Jenny L., who help track misinformation and misinformation for Asian Americans support justice – AAJC, a non-profit organization in Washington, DC. She asked to keep her last name to avoid online harassment. “It’s easy for them to bypass YouTube’s minimal censorship for non-English content, including avoiding certain words or using slang terms — like a the word sounds like the second character in the Mandarin word for vaccine.
None of the WIRED activists spoke when they saw evidence of the Chinese government’s involvement in spreading election disinformation – although blogger More Less pointed out that some nationalists in China welcomes anything that undermines American democracy.
Like in English, Donald Trump currently dominates much of US conversation on Chinese-language platforms about politics and the upcoming midterm elections. At a press conference in September, the CAA, the Mental Health Association for the Chinese Community, and APIAVote, a group that tries to involve Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities in the political process , has warned about the trend of falsehood.
They included a story that went viral on public WeChat channels claiming the FBI raid to obtain government documents from Trump’s home in Florida was orchestrated by the Biden administration to help midterm Democrats. Some posts feature a uniquely Chinese take, comparing the FBI search to an unauthorized raid on homes during China’s Cultural Revolution. In response, PiYaoBa posted an article in Chinese touting detailed backgroundCorrects misinformation and links to reliable sources, although all are in English.
