How China manipulates search engines to spread propaganda, weaken democratic rivals

New Delhi: In modern-day lives, be it for travel or for acquiring vital information, for online addresses or for myriad other needs, people cannot function without depending on an informative search engine. Search engines are sought after since they throw up rapid answers to popular queries. But when a search engine is controlled by an authoritarian state like China, it serves only to spread false narratives and more often than not propaganda. For Beijing, search engines have turned out to be tools to spread propaganda to audiences globally and also to weaken neighbouring democratic countries.

China—known for its state-backed media—has begun exploiting search engines to put forth the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, a recent study by the Washington-based Brookings Institution has found. On topics of geopolitical importance, China has started exploiting search engine results to disseminate news gathered by state-backed media that amplify the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda. The study also revealed that China manages to stop negative news about the country from appearing in most search engine results.

The study found that China for some time now has been using search engines as a crucial tool in their information warfare against less developed nations. The study, conducted over four months revealed that China significantly exploited search engine results on two most frequently searched topics, “Xinjiang” and the unprecedented global onslaught brought about “Covid-19”. Both happened to be subjects that China’s political leadership is very sensitive about and would only want the world to know the version that it puts out.

Across the world, users turning to search engines for authentic information on ‘Xinjiang’– the site of the CCP’s human rights violations of the Uyghur minority community, or the origins of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic are shockingly likely to find articles on these subjects published by Chinese state-media houses, spewing the Chinese authoritarian leadership’s views on these events– simply put versions which the CCP would want the world to know and believe.

When they prominently reflect such content, search engines often play a vital role in China’s effort to shape the narrative thus distorting the actual truth.

Multinational companies are just beginning to wake up to the fallout of manipulated search engine results and are looking for ways to address such state-sponsored content on the world wide web. Last week, Microsoft said that it will consider attaching labels to state-sponsored content like that emanating from China, and it also indicated that it would produce its first transparency report on efforts to slow the spread of state-backed disinformation later this year.

Google-owned YouTube began labelling state-affiliated accounts in 2018, including those of many Chinese outlets. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google demonetized and further de-ranked Russian state media.

However, the move to regulate search engines and stop them from throwing up state-sponsored content for users has a flipside too. Stopping Chinese state media backed content from appearing in global search results would also hamper users from getting access to any understanding of Chinese society—normally a veritable fortress. But on the other hand, letting Chinese state-media dominate search engine results also poses a risk for users who may end up taking in large quantities of low-quality information, in their quest for knowledge.

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