Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, is “erasing” the plight of the persecuted Uyghur minority from internet searches in China, The Post has learned.
Results from the tech giant’s Bing search engine show how its Chinese users are presented with different results than American users.
And in the most egregious example, Bing’s image results for the term “Uyghur” when entered in China show happy Uyghurs smiling and dancing — part of a larger propaganda effort to persuade the world’s Uyghurs to live a wonderful life under Chinese rule.
China’s Communist regime in Beijing has waged a scorched-earth campaign against the Uyghurs, a Muslim-majority ethnic minority officially numbering 12 million people living in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, including imprisoning more than a million in concentration camps since 2017 – and was officially declared a “genocide” by the State Department.
The UN has accused China of “serious human rights violations” but Beijing has denied wrongdoing and instead suggested the allegations were from “anti-China voices trying to discredit China.”
These are different search results than searches on Bing for “Uighurs”, also spelled Uyghur, in the US and in China. Microsoft offers its search engine in China where the Communist Party regime is accused of “genocide” against ethnic minority groups. Detailed search results for the image “Uighur” on Bing in the US show references to “suffering,” “oppression” and “mass detention.” That is a word that China objects to. And the image also shows people wearing blue masks in protest, some of them with hands in Chinese Communist colors over their mouths – a reference to protests for Uyghur rights that have been widespread and use the sky-blue flag of the Uighurs. These are the search results for “Uyghur” in Chinese on Microsoft Bing, done using a Chinese VPN to mimic what users in China themselves see. The browser uses the Google Translate extension to convert the search result text to English. The images show Uyghurs dancing, singing and performing in ethnic clothing. Human rights groups say that such images are part of Communist attempts to stifle minority groups by portraying them as happy to live under the Beijing regime. None of China’s decisions showed protest against human rights abuses or blue-masked protesters.
Search results seen by The Post show Microsoft — founded by Bill Gates, who met Chinese leader Xi Jinping for one-on-one talks last June, and led by Satya Nadlla — appears to be acting to help the Communist campaign by offering different results on its Bing search engine. in China than those in the US.
US search results for “Uighur” show links to news stories that mention “oppression” and “suffering,” and images of Uyghurs wearing masks against the sky-blue flag of the ethnic group in protest against the Chinese government.
But the results of using Chinese VPNs to mirror domestic Chinese results show images of Uyghurs singing and dancing.
Louisa Coan Greve, Director of Global Advocacy at the Uyghur Human Rights Project told The Post that portraying Uyghur life as happy and ignoring protests and evidence of human rights abuses is part of a systemic campaign by Beijing.
More than a million Uyghurs have been placed in detention camps since 2017. Although the State Department has denounced the act as “genocide,” China denies it committed any human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch China leader Xi Jinping visited Xinjiang province, home of the Uyghur minority, in July 2022 but his regime was described by the State Department as carrying out a “genocide” against the majority Muslim ethnic group. AP
“Uyghur culture is being commoditized because their poets and musicians are serving 10 or 20 years in concentration camps,” Greve said.
“The CCP’s playbook for getting away with atrocities is to first hide, and then deny, and then justify the atrocities as ‘re-education.’ Now Microsoft is helping with the next step.”
A Microsoft spokesperson said: “Search results may vary due to various factors including the language used. When generating search results, we return content in the original language used in the search query.
“If the same search is performed in a different language, different results may occur.”
Microsoft has faced some backlash for its involvement with China. The company came under fire when reports emerged in 2021 that it failed to display images of Tiananmen Square and did not auto-populate individual search results the CCP did not like on its Bing search engine.
Microsoft president Brad Smith has said he hopes Microsoft will “actively participate in the digital transformation of China’s economy.” The company employs more than 10,000 researchers and developers in China and has a retail arm. Future Publishing via Getty Images
But it has not been questioned by Congress about its activities in China, where unlike Google, it offers its search engine, regulating how users view the internet.
But some lawmakers hint that what they see as Microsoft’s continued appeasement toward China could change the kid-glove treatment it has received, sources said.
Although there is no official investigation, some DC lawmakers have suggested the possibility of limiting the multi-billion dollar contracts Microsoft receives from the US government.
“Maybe it’s time to rethink the US government giving so much business to an entity that is doing the bidding of one of our main rivals,” said a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee.
Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China’s strategic competition told The Post, “American companies cannot facilitate CCP censorship, and instead should leverage their technology and influence to end the oppression of the Chinese people.
“Today, the CCP has figured out how to… use the party’s total control over the internet to force foreign companies to censor according to their dictatorial demands.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who chairs the House committee on competition with China, warned “American companies cannot facilitate CCP censorship” after seeing Bing search results. Getty Images
“American companies should not be doing Communist China’s dirty work and promoting their propaganda,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told The Post. “These reports about Microsoft helping America’s enemies are deeply troubling.”
Microsoft – which overtook Apple in January to become the world’s most valuable company – did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The $3 trillion company’s settlement with the CCP is particularly ironic, the source added, given how outspoken the company is on domestic issues.
“Microsoft is quick to take the moral high ground while ignoring scrutiny — like when it took a position on voting rights,” said one tech industry insider.
“This is a more algorithmic form of censorship than we’ve seen before but at the end of the day the goal is the same: To appease the Chinese government.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
