China appears to have massively upgraded its powerful online censorship apparatus, using it to more severely block sensitive topics in group conversations while allowing freer rein in private chats – a sign, one expert says, of a dramatic leap in the use of artificial intelligence to silence speech that falls afoul of the Communist Party.
The growing sophistication of China’s Internet blocking, uncovered by researchers at the University of Toronto, offers a window into how the country’s authoritarian regulators are growing savvier at choking out what they see as undesirable speech – while limiting the anger their deletions stir both domestically and abroad.