Recently, China’s richest man, Zhong Shantu, has publicly criticized the algorithm of ByteDance, and expressed his expectation for an apology from Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, for the harm caused to him. A week later, Li Liang, Vice President of the Douyin Group under ByteDance, responded twice to the algorithm in his posts.
Zhong Shantu, the founder of Nongfu Spring, uncommonly expressed his views on the cyberbullying and other issues he faced in the first half of this year. He pointed out that Douyin and “Toutiao,” under ByteDance, have caused serious damage to his personal and business reputation. He also expressed his hope for an apology from Zhang Yiming.
When discussing the use of algorithms to push messages on platforms, Zhong Shantu mentioned, “Organized diversion, traffic restriction, lack of principles, arbitrary deletion of posts, rewarding and encouraging traffic and rumors with money, turning the internet into technology, algorithms, and turning it into a game that manipulates the intelligence of the public.” He also said, “Much evil is man-made, especially when using scientific and technological means, technical capabilities, the evil caused is greater than the evil caused by ordinary people, this is a great evil.”
Li Liang, Vice President of the Douyin Group certified by Toutiao, wrote on November 30th that all major platforms are using algorithms, and algorithms are not as complicated and mysterious as they seem. However, he admitted that “the popularization of algorithms is not well done, the transparency is not enough, and the ability to identify and combat rumors and cyberbullying is insufficient.”
In his article, Li Liang mentioned a case, saying, “Some marketing accounts, such as Pan from Baizhun, for the sake of business and expanding influence, are good at packaging and commonly known as boasting, which is essentially fabricating lies, deceiving customers and the public. Usually, the credibility of such ‘boasting’ marketing accounts is not high, their destructive power is not strong, and the spread of rumors is limited. But if the media does not make identification, even simple verification, and directly quotes the self-introduction of Baizhun, a marketing account boasting lies, as true, and publishes it in the form of news reports, the platform will find it difficult to identify.”
Li Liang’s above-mentioned article spread online on December 2nd, and the founder of Baizhun, Pan Yuefei, cited in Li Liang’s article, responded the same day in a video, saying, “It may have touched the sore spots of certain platforms, so much so that a certain platform’s Vice President personally came out to criticize me.”
Pan Yuefei, the founder of the video data analysis platform Baizhun, had previously, in an interview with Chinese media, introduced the process and results of adjusting the algorithm of a content product and the experience of an algorithm going out of control, claiming that this content product was sold to ByteDance.
Shortly after the release of Pan Yuefei’s related video, Li Liang published another article, which seems to once again use Pan Yuefei as a typical case.
In the article, Li Liang stated that Pan claimed to have held a professional position in News Republic, a project acquired by ByteDance, and self-proclaimed as “one of the top ten algorithm experts in China,” calling him a braggart and a fabricator of lies, and believing that such “marketing accounts” are targets for Douyin’s platform crackdown.
Regarding the above issues, Pan Yuefei told “Economic Observer” that in fact, News Republic was not founded by Cheetah Mobile, as Li Liang claimed it to be a “project,” but it was acquired by Cheetah Mobile in 2016. After the merger of this project with the original algorithm content aggregation project founded by Cheetah Mobile in 2014, it was sold to ByteDance in 2017. He himself was one of the responsible persons for the Cheetah Mobile algorithm content aggregation product in this process.
Furthermore, Pan Yuefei said that in his previous video, he never claimed to be one of the top ten algorithm experts, but rather said he was one of the top ten people familiar with the evil of algorithms. It is precisely because of this that he continues to urge for regulation of algorithms.
A source familiar with Cheetah Mobile revealed that Pan Yuefei did indeed work on the News Republic project. Another person involved in Cheetah Mobile’s acquisition of News Republic stated that Pan played a role in the project.