Tag: Video Recordings, Downloads and Streaming

China Unveils New Restrictions on Online Video Games

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The Latest Chinese regulators announced new restrictions Friday on online video games, which they said were aimed at tightening the management of the industry and protecting the country’s minors. The proposed rules, which are subject to public comment before being made final, are the latest in several rounds of curbs on the industry over the last few years. The plan would call for users to have spending limits on the game platforms and would prohibit minors from tipping videogame live streamers. The draft rules, issued by the National Press and…

Wang Gang’s Egg Fried Rice Video and Free Speech in China

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The United States is entangled in an emotional debate about antisemitism and free speech on college campuses. The latest speech debate in China is about a chef’s video on how to make egg fried rice. Egg fried rice is a staple of Chinese home cooking and one of the first dishes many Chinese learn to cook. Think of mac and cheese in America. That was probably why Wang Gang, one of China’s most popular food bloggers, has made multiple recipe videos about the dish in the past five years. His…

Pro-China YouTube Network Used A.I. to Malign U.S., Report Finds

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In a faintly stilted tone and with slightly awkward grammar, the American-accented voice on YouTube last month ridiculed Washington’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, claiming that the United States was unable to “play its role as a mediator like China” and “now finds itself in a position of significant isolation.” The 10-minute post was one of more than 4,500 videos in an unusually large network of YouTube channels spreading pro-China and anti-U.S. narratives, according to a report this week from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a security-focused…

Meta’s ‘Biggest Single Takedown’ Removes Chinese Influence Campaign

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On Feb. 27, an article claiming that the United States was behind the bombing of the Nord Stream underwater pipelines in the Baltic Sea was published on the Substack and Blogspot blogging platforms. Within 24 hours, the article — and other versions of it — had been posted to more websites, including Reddit, Medium, Tumblr, Facebook and YouTube. Translations of the article in Greek, German, Russian, Italian and Turkish also began appearing online. The posts were part of a Chinese influence campaign that stands out as the largest such operation…

A Marriage, a Secret and a Crackdown in China

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Vivian Wang contributed reporting. Fact-checking by Susan Lee. Translations by Vickie Wang. The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky,…

The Shining Promise and Dashed Dreams of China’s Live Shopping Craze

Chin@Strategy

A High-Tech New Opportunity Growing up, Taiping could hardly have imagined making a fortune by any means, let alone by talking into his phone. Born in the plains of Inner Mongolia, a region in northern China where temperatures can plummet to minus 20 degrees, he left school after fifth grade, working as a herdsman, security guard and truck driver. He hardly spoke Mandarin, China’s dominant language, as his schoolteachers had taught mostly in Mongolian. In 2015, noticing that his town’s scenic grasslands were attracting tourists, Taiping, then 30 years old, decided…

The People Onscreen Are Fake. The Disinformation Is Real.

Chin@Strategy

Although the usage of deepfakes in the recently discovered pro-China disinformation campaign was ham handed, it opens a new chapter in information warfare. In recent weeks, another video using similar A.I. technology was uncovered online, showing fictitious people who described themselves as Americans, promoting support for the government of Burkina Faso, which faces scrutiny for links to Russia. A.I. software, which can easily be purchased online, can create “videos in a matter of minutes and subscriptions start at just a few dollars a month,” Mr. Stubbs said. “That makes it…

Protests Stretch China’s Censorship to Its Limits

Chin@Strategy

He too shared videos of the protest on WeChat, though he deleted them after 24 hours in an effort to evade the authorities, who had begun to go after some demonstrators. Though only up shortly, his videos changed the minds of two people he had thought would be unreceptive: his parents. “My parents, like many Chinese parents, used to think what I’m doing is meaningless and childish, but they have changed dramatically in the past two days,” Mr. Qu said. His parents now understand why he would participate in such…

What Videos Show About the Extremes of China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Policy

Chin@Strategy

It has been weeks since Gao Mingjun, a 24-year-old resident of the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, saw her mother. As coronavirus cases began spreading in Zhengzhou last month, Ms. Gao’s mother, who works and lives at the city’s Foxconn industrial park — home to the world’s biggest iPhone assembly plant — told her daughter that she was barred from leaving the compound. Then, one night, Ms. Gao’s mother was ordered into a quarantine center about four miles away. She and dozens of other groggy workers were made to wait…

TikTok’s CEO Navigates the Limits of His Power

Chin@Strategy

TikTok recently tried to tamp down concerns from U.S. lawmakers that it poses a national security threat because it is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance. The viral video app insisted it had an arm’s-length relationship with ByteDance and that its own executive was in charge. “TikTok is led by its own global C.E.O., Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean based in Singapore,” TikTok wrote in a June letter to U.S. lawmakers. But in fact, Mr. Chew’s decision-making power over TikTok is limited, according to 12 former TikTok and ByteDance…