The Provisions on the Administration of Internet Information Service Algorithm Recommendation jointly issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China and four other departments will be formally implemented tomorrow (March 1). For ordinary users, algorithms cannot be touched or understood, but they are widely affecting our access to Internet information services through various platforms.
Algorithms are everywhere Abuse problems constantly
Algorithm recommendation technology captures users' daily usage data, analyzes people's behaviors, habits and preferences, and then accurately provides various services such as information, entertainment, and consumption. While providing convenience, in recent years, unreasonable applications such as "big data killing", traffic fraud, and inducing addiction have also brought trouble to our lives. According to the "China Great Security Perception Report (2021)" jointly released by the Internet Development Research Center of Peking University and Internet companies, 70% of respondents feel that algorithms can obtain their own preferences and interests to "calculate" themselves, and nearly 50% of respondents said that they want to escape the network and stay away from mobile phones under the constraints of algorithms.
Zuo Xiaodong, vice president of the China Academy of Information Security: The push of these services is customized by network service providers, so customization is easy to abuse, light damage to our personal rights and interests, serious will endanger national security, so algorithm recommendation must be regulated.
The Provisions make it clear that the application of algorithm recommendation technology refers to the use of algorithmic techniques such as generative synthesis, personalized push, sorting selection, retrieval and filtering, and scheduling and decision-making to provide information to users. Almost all kinds of Internet companies that provide algorithm recommendation services are within the scope of supervision, such as various short video platforms, e-commerce platforms, social platforms and catering takeaway platforms.
In order to break the "black box" that the algorithm cannot touch or understand, the Provisions clearly require that the user's right to know the algorithm and the right to choose the algorithm should be guaranteed, and the user should be provided with options that do not target their personal characteristics, or the option to conveniently turn off the algorithm recommendation service.
The Provisions require that algorithm recommendation service providers should adhere to the mainstream value orientation, actively disseminate positive energy, establish and improve mechanisms for manual intervention and user self-selection, and must not use algorithms to influence network public opinion, evade supervision and management, and monopolize and unfair competition.
No differential treatment can be implemented, and the sword refers to the "killing" of big data.
In recent years, some enterprises have used personal information to engage in big data "killing", differential pricing of different groups, and implementation of "price discrimination", which makes consumers very disgusted. In this regard, how will the "Provisions" be cracked?
Ms. Hu of Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, ordered a hotel room through a business travel platform, and when checking out, she found that the room rate paid through the platform was nearly twice as high as the actual hotel room rate, and she was a senior member of the business travel platform, and she should have enjoyed a 15% discount. Ms. Hu suspected that the business travel platform had "big data killing" behavior through her previous consumption behavior, and sued the business travel platform in court. In July last year, the court granted the plaintiff's request for a refund of one to three in the first instance. This case has been called by many media as the first case of "big data killing".
The same delivery time, place, order, takeaway platform, but members pay more than non-members; at the same time, the same type of car to the same destination, a taxi platform has been found by users to charge more regular customers, similar consumer complaints have occurred. In this regard, the Provisions propose that where algorithms recommend service providers to sell goods or provide services to consumers, they shall protect consumers' right to fair trade, and must not use algorithms to carry out unreasonable differential treatment and other illegal acts on transaction conditions such as transaction prices based on consumers' preferences and trading habits.
Zuo Xiaodong, vice president of the China Academy of Information Security: Some platforms will say that this algorithm is my intellectual property and my trade secret, I cannot disclose it, these arguments cannot be established, and the algorithm of the platform must ensure the necessary transparency.
Experts stressed that the "Provisions" also clearly protect the rights and interests of users such as the right to choose and delete. Consumers are prevented from being "calculated" by the algorithm by providing users with the option not to target their personal characteristics, or by providing users with the option to turn off algorithmic recommendation services conveniently, and by providing the ability to select or delete user tags for their personal characteristics.
Protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers to avoid being "trapped" by algorithms
In addition, in the "Administrative Provisions", it is required that the algorithm recommends that the service provider provide work scheduling services to the employee, and shall protect the legitimate rights and interests of the employee to obtain labor remuneration, rest and leave, etc., and then understand the relevant situation.
In September 2020, an article titled "Takeaway Riders, Trapped in the System" attracted much attention. The article describes that under the algorithm and data drive of the takeaway platform system, the delivery time of the takeaway rider is constantly compressed, and the rider, driven by the powerful system, in order to avoid bad reviews and maintain income, has to choose retrograde, running red lights and other practices in reality. Many takeaway riders said that in dozens of high-rise buildings, elevators are ten minutes or even longer, but such objective situations are not taken into account by the "algorithm system".
Liang Zheng, deputy dean of the Institute of International Governance of Artificial Intelligence of Tsinghua University: Since the machine is still in the development stage, for some labor work scenarios, the decision power is handed over to the machine, and there is a great potential risk of fairness and reliability.
Internet platform optimization algorithm mainly through the big data analysis algorithm model to calculate the best strategy for business operations, at the same time, with the algorithm with a set of strict performance appraisal mechanism, once violated some of the algorithm rules, it will lose the "advantage" in the assessment, and may bring some vicious response behavior. In this regard, the "Provisions" specifically proposes that algorithm recommendation service providers that provide work scheduling services to workers shall protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers such as obtaining labor remuneration, rest and leave, etc., and establish and improve relevant algorithms such as platform order distribution, remuneration composition and payment, working hours, rewards and punishments.