Chen Bing, Nankai University: Take algorithmic governance as the starting point to promote the development of the digital economy

On January 12, 2022, the State Council issued the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). The "Planning" pointed out that the mainland digital economy is developing rapidly, but it still faces the problem of unbalanced, insufficient and irregular development, and it is necessary to improve the governance level of the mainland digital economy. We should optimize and upgrade digital infrastructure, promote the development of "cloud-network collaboration" and "computing-network integration", and accelerate the construction of a nationally integrated big data center system with computing power, algorithms, data, and application resources.

As a major country in the construction and application of the Internet, the mainland attaches great importance to the regulation of various acts and related data security in the Internet field, and has formed a relatively mature network, data and algorithm supervision system, including the Cybersecurity Law, the Data Security Law, the Personal Information Protection Law, the Internet Information Service Management Measures, and many other laws and regulations. As an important part of the above-mentioned regulatory system, the Provisions are consistent with the basic principle that the development of the digital economy in the Plan should adhere to fair competition, safety and order, and is an important measure to implement the central government's strategic deployment of network security and informatization work and promote the ecological governance of Internet information services. The promulgation of the Provisions provides clear, targeted and operational legal norms for punishing algorithm chaos, which is of great significance to regulating and promoting the healthy development of the digital economy.

Consolidate the bottom line of safe development and standardize algorithms for good

The "Plan" points out that while developing the digital economy, we should also firmly adhere to the bottom line of security and focus on strengthening the security system of the digital economy. It is necessary to enhance network security protection capabilities, improve the level of data security guarantees, and effectively prevent various risks. Among them, algorithm governance, as a key link in the overall governance and system governance of the digital economy, not only involves market governance, but also involves social governance and the overall security of the country. As article 6 of the Provisions clearly stipulates, algorithm recommendation service providers must not use algorithm recommendation services to engage in activities prohibited by laws and administrative regulations such as endangering national security and the societal public interest, disrupting economic and social order, or infringing on the lawful rights and interests of others; article 7 clearly requires that algorithm recommendation service providers shall implement the main responsibility for algorithm security, establish and complete management systems and technical measures such as data security protection and personal information protection. At the level of national security and personal information protection, this puts forward new requirements for algorithm recommendation service providers, providing important institutional guarantees for national security, social public interests, and personal privacy.

In practice, algorithm recommendation service providers often use algorithmic technology to analyze and organize consumer data, form a user model or user label, and accurately push it on this basis. Although the user model or user tag can improve the efficiency of information push, it is easy to form an "information cocoon", so that the user is limited to the field he is familiar with, forming a passive accumulation of knowledge, unable to obtain comprehensive and objective information; if the illegal and bad information keywords are recorded into the user's point of interest or used as user tags and push information, it may also adversely affect the user's physical and mental health. In this regard, article 10 of the Provisions requires that algorithm recommendation service providers should improve the rules for recording points of interest and user tag management rules for entering the user model, and must not record illegal and bad information keywords into user interest points or use them as user tags and push information based on them.

The "people-oriented" framing algorithm applies the red line

At present, due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, it is difficult for employees in traditional industries to find employment conveniently, while the flexible form of employment based on the platform economy has attracted a large number of workers to work, alleviating the pressure on people's livelihood. Takeaway delivery workers, chauffeurs, online housekeeping and other entities rely on the Internet platform economy to obtain orders, but the rights and interests of these workers may also be affected by the unreasonable order distribution, reward and punishment rules and working time arrangements of the algorithm, forced to extend working hours, exceed the intensity of work, or can not receive orders normally. In this regard, the "Plan" pointed out that it is necessary to effectively prevent various risks, establish and improve relevant algorithms, and improve the participation of flexible employment personnel in the social insurance system and the protection system for the rights and interests of workers. Article 20 of the Provisions stipulates that "where algorithm recommendation service providers provide work scheduling services to workers, they shall protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers in 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".

At the same time, in the face of the accelerated arrival of the mainland's aging society, the "Plan" points out that optimizing the intelligent upgrading of infrastructure should fully meet the needs of special groups such as the elderly; strengthening the digital economic security system also requires improving the network protection mechanism for special groups such as the elderly. At present, with the expansion of the scope of application of artificial intelligence technology, the entire society is constantly developing in the direction of intelligence. However, for the elderly group, because the learning ability is not as good as that of young people, it may be difficult to effectively master the emerging algorithm recommendation service, so it is impossible to enjoy the new experience brought by the algorithm recommendation service, and even as intelligent equipment continues to replace traditional equipment, it has also brought many inconveniences to the elderly group. In this regard, article 19 of the Provisions stipulates that "where algorithm recommendation service providers provide services to the elderly, they shall protect the rights and interests enjoyed by the elderly in accordance with the law, fully consider the needs of the elderly such as travel, medical treatment, consumption, and handling of affairs, provide intelligent services for the elderly in accordance with relevant national provisions, carry out monitoring, identification and disposal of information related to telecommunications network fraud in accordance with the law, and facilitate the safe use of algorithm recommendation services by the elderly".

In addition, because minors have not yet formed sound values, it is difficult to identify a variety of complex types of information, and they are vulnerable to the influence of bad information or application services on the Internet, especially the frequent occurrence of incidents of minors' addiction caused by online games, short videos and other application software, which has triggered widespread public discussion. In this regard, the "Plan" points out that the network protection mechanism for special groups such as minors should be improved and improved. Article 18 of the "Provisions" clearly requires that algorithm recommendation service providers shall lawfully perform their obligations to protect minors online, provide services appropriate to the characteristics of minors, facilitate minors' access to information beneficial to their physical and mental health, must not push information affecting minors' physical and mental health to minors, and must not use algorithm recommendation services to induce minors to become addicted to the Internet.

Do a good job of classification and coordination, and improve the level of algorithm governance

According to the content categories, public opinion attributes and user scale involved in the application of algorithms, as well as the size of the risk that algorithm applications may produce to network security, the scope and extent of damage to society, the governance of hierarchical classification is the mainstream view and basic rationale of current algorithm governance. For example, article 23 of the Provisions clarifies a differentiated regulatory system for hierarchical classification, requiring network information departments, together with relevant departments such as telecommunications, public security, and market supervision, to carry out hierarchical and categorical management of algorithm recommendation service providers based on the public opinion attributes of algorithm recommendation services or elements such as social mobilization capabilities, content categories, and user scale, and to carry out algorithm security assessments, supervision and inspections more comprehensively.

In order to further deal with the "black box" attribute of algorithms that are difficult to grasp, article 24 of the Provisions clarifies the algorithm filing system, requiring algorithm recommendation service providers with public opinion attributes or social mobilization capabilities to fill in information such as the service provider's service form, application field, and algorithm self-assessment report through the Internet information service algorithm filing system, and perform filing formalities. The establishment of the algorithm filing system is conducive to the supervision of algorithm recommendation services and better prevent the risks that may be brought by algorithms.

At the same time, the Plan clearly points out that in order to improve the digital economy governance system, it is necessary to further strengthen the collaborative governance and supervision mechanism, enhance the government's digital governance capabilities, and improve the new pattern of diversified co-governance.

According to the requirements of the "Planning", to standardize the application of algorithms, first of all, we should strengthen the collaborative governance mechanism, strengthen the collaborative governance between different departments within the government, should clarify the responsibilities of the competent departments and regulatory agencies, strengthen cross-departmental, cross-level, cross-regional collaborative supervision, clarify the scope of supervision and unified rules, and strengthen the division of labor cooperation and coordination. Article 3 of the Provisions stipulates that the departments involved in the governance of algorithm recommendation services include telecommunications, public security, market supervision and other relevant departments in addition to the state network information department, and the Provisions point out that these departments are responsible for the supervision and management of algorithm recommendation services according to their respective responsibilities, and local departments are responsible for the supervision and management of algorithm recommendation services according to their duties. However, since algorithm recommendation services often have cross-regional and cross-domain characteristics, and may also involve multiple regulatory departments or local regulatory departments in multiple regions at the same time in the regulatory process, in order to avoid the occurrence of mutual prevarication due to overlapping responsibilities in the regulatory process, it is also necessary to establish a cross-departmental and cross-regional collaborative supervision mechanism.

Second, we should establish and improve pluralistic co-governance. The "Plan" clearly states that it is necessary to establish and improve the digital economy governance pattern with the diversified participation and effective coordination of the government, platforms, enterprises, industry organizations and the public.

The healthy development of the industry requires external constraints on the one hand to form legal norms and government supervision, and on the other hand, it also requires industry self-discipline. To this end, the "Planning" pointed out that it is necessary to further promote the construction of industry service standards and industry self-discipline. In order to encourage the algorithm service industry to form industry self-discipline, Article 5 of the Provisions clearly emphasizes that relevant industry organizations are encouraged to strengthen industry self-discipline, establish and improve industry standards, industry standards and self-discipline management systems, supervise and guide algorithm recommendation service providers to formulate and improve service specifications, provide services according to law and accept social supervision, especially the current algorithm hot issues such as "big data killing" and "information cocooning" and their legal responsibilities that are generally concerned by all sectors of society, laying an institutional foundation for establishing and improving the pattern of diversified co-governance.

At present, the development of the digital economy in the mainland is standing at the starting point of a new cycle, and the digital economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development. Governance algorithm has become the top priority to ensure and promote the high-quality development of the digital economy, which is not only related to the efficiency of the development of the digital economy, but also involves the security of the operation of the digital economy, to this end, as soon as possible to develop the introduction of security specifications, "people-oriented" coverage algorithm application of the whole cycle, the whole scenario, the whole process of the classification of collaborative governance mechanisms and methods, has become the key to guiding the algorithm to good, encouraging algorithm innovation, releasing the positive performance of the algorithm.

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