Daily Archives: June 23, 2021

Tue, Jun 22, 2021

New AtlanticistbyNick Fouriezos

Related Experts: Katherine Maher,

Courtesy: Katherine Maher

When the Turkish government asked Wikipedia to take down references to reports that Turkey was supporting militants in Syria, the online encyclopedia refusedand had its reach to more than eighty million Turkish residents cut off. While that would have been a major hit for many online media platforms, Wikipedia was uniquely positioned to weather the storm, battling in court for nearly three years until Turkeys highest court ruled in January 2020 that the governments ban violated free-expression rights.

Wikipedias success was thanks to a series of intentional organizational decisions, said Katherine Maher, who stepped down in April from her post as the Wikimedia Foundations CEO and executive director and who is now a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Councils newly established Democracy & Tech Initiative. At a time when major digital platforms from Facebook and Twitter to TikTok are facing censorship around the worldparticularly in countries like India, Russia, and ChinaMaher believes for-profit media companies can learn from Wikipedias example.

It is expensive, it is hard, it takes multiple years to set up. But I know that those costs are not significantly greater than what is already being expended by these companies to manage their reputations and to manage the sort of regulatory environment, Maher said.

Maher appeared Tuesday at the 360/Open Summit, hosted by the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab. In conversation with NBC News senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny, Maher also spoke about how Wikipedia and other platforms can fight disinformation, increase diversity, and foster trust. As Atlantic Council CEO Frederick Kempe put it when introducing the discussion, Wikipedias unique model of volunteer editors, multiple language and other affiliate communities, and nonprofit status makes the platform a microcosm of the world.

Below are some of the key takeaways from the discussion.

Tue, Jun 22, 2021

The former Wikimedia CEO joined 360/Open Summit, hosted by the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensics Research Lab. Heres a transcript of the discussion.

TranscriptsbyAtlantic Council

Nick Fouriezos is an Atlanta-based writer with bylines from every US state and six continents. Follow him on Twitter @nick4iezos.

Wed, May 5, 2021

Facebooks Oversight Board ruled Wednesday that former US President Donald Trump will remain banned from the platform for encouraging the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. And what consequences is it likely to have on online radicalization and the use and abuse of social media around the world?

Fast ThinkingbyAtlantic Council

Mon, Feb 1, 2021

Congress will certainly take on reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but it should not just focus on the companies and their responsibilities. Legislators should take a good, hard look in the mirror. They must provide the guidelines that are central to reducing violent extremist content online: rules on acceptable versus forbidden online speech.

New AtlanticistbyFrances Burwell

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Former Wikipedia chief on fighting censorship and potentially paying contributors to address diversity gaps - Atlantic Council

Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane warns censorship in China has the potential to spread and influence the U.S.

Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, was recently raided by 500 police officers and the owner, Jimmy Lai, was put in Jail. In an interview on FOX Business' "Mornings with Maria," Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane said that free press is "dead" in Hong Kong and warned that censorship in China is pervasive and has begun to spread to the United States.

HONG KONG TYCOON GETS 14-MONTH JAIL TERM OVER 2019 PROTEST

GEN. JACK KEANE (RET.): We've got to comprehend how massive controlling information is to the Chinese because they know full well their Achilles' heel are the people. They need the willing support and submission of the of the people. The social compact to let the CCP control their lives. They have to submit to them, and, therefore, they can have their own economic and prosperous advancement based on their own capabilities.

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So what does actually happen here? They obscure their history Cultural Revolution when Mao Tse-tung killed over a million of his own people Tiananmen Square, as you say. And then when people come out and speak against that, they repress that. And then they get sympathizers, apologists to say, 'well, it's really not so bad what's going on in China.' Look at the recent repression. Just last week, 500 police raided Apple Daily, which is an anti-Communist Party publication that Jimmy Lai owns. And he is sitting in a jailhouse in Hong Kong. Can you imagine this? Five hundred police enter a newspaper's headquarters and pull out of there their senior executives, managing editors and put them in jail. Freedom of the press is dead in Hong Kong.

HONG KONG IS FOREVER LOST TO CHINA: SWIMMING TO FREEDOM AUTHOR

Now, why are they doing that? Because the Apple Daily criticizes the Chinese Communist Party, and China will have none of it. Facebook, in this country up until May, has been denying any accusations in Facebook against the origins of the virus coming out of the Wuhan lab. And they just finally removed that restriction. That is censorship in our own country. That's what the author, Paul Wolfowitz, was talking about how this spreads outside of China and contaminates.

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Fox News senior strategic analyst General Jack Keane discusses the U.S. relationship with Iran and censorship in China.

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Media censorship in China has contaminated the US: Gen. Jack Keane - Fox Business

GRAPEVINE, Texas (NRB) On Tuesday morning, a panel of experts led a discussion regarding freedom of speech in the digital age and the growing concern over censorship and de-platforming. Allie Beth Stuckey, podcaster and author of the book Youre not Enough & Thats Okay, moderated the panel that included David French,senior editor of The Dispatch, Ken Starr, Counsel to The Lanier Law Firm and formerly a U.S. Circuit Judge, and Lila Rose, founder and president of LiveAction.

The panel began with a discussion of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was passed in 1996. Section 230says that No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

In other words, Section 230 says that any online service provider that hosts third party speech cannot be held liable for statements that are made on the providers platform. This has allowed individuals to express their opinions on social media platforms.

Section 230(b) expresses Congresss intent to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.

French explained the history of Section 230 and described it as the rocket fuel for free speech online.

The panel also discussed censorship in social media.

These companies are populated by far left ideas and there is a definitive double standard, Rose said.

LiveAction has been banned from advertising on Twitter for six years and counting.

We worked to try to make it right, and ultimately we were told by a Twitter representative that until we deleted pro-life content, images, and other content, the ban would not be lifted,Rose said.

Starr said that we do not want government bureaucrats controlling private entities. The government cannot regulate what happens within these corporations platforms.

Here are the first principles: these are private corporations and they enjoy first amendment rights, Starr said.

Starr discussed that this issue is an ongoing issue.He saidthat there are 13 different measures and some bipartisan efforts. Hestressed that progress is not going to happen overnight but celebrated that at least the conversation is ongoing.

Lets do what we can do, Starr said. We have voices, and we need to ask for more accountability.

French spoke tohis perspectiveon censorship.

The idea of the left ideology is that they want big tech to censor a lot more free speech,French said.

Rose acknowledged that social media platforms make mistakes andencouragedpeople to build relationships with the companies and work out concerns with tech companies first rather than posting on social media or relying on a conservative media source.

Rose talked to attendees about taking their message beyond social media platforms, encouraging attendees to engage in their own communities and to explore ways they can distributetheir message without depending on social media platforms.

The more you build your following elsewhere, the more success you will have long term,Rose said.Utilize multiple platforms as a strength.

She encouraged attendees to build an audience through multiple channels.She encouraged attendees to explore communication options that go beyond social mediawhether thats writing a book or talking with other thought leaders. She said thatthis couldhave a far greaterinfluence than tweeting.

NRB is the worlds preeminent association of Christian communicators. Since 1944, they have worked to protect free speech and foster excellence in communication.

For more information regarding the NRB, visit nrb.org.

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NRB Hosts Forum on Platform Censorship, Section 230, and the Future of Social Media at NRB 2021 NRB - NRB Today

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So the Trudeau government has succeeded in ramming through its internet censorship law, Bill C-10, on the eve of Parliament rising for the summer (and probably for a fall federal election).

The Liberals used some of the most ham-fisted Parliamentary tactics in the past quarter century just to make sure this bill became law before the House of Commons adjourned.

I guess thats an improvement from this time last year when the Liberals prorogued Parliament entirely for four months rather than suffer continued damage from the WE Charity scandal.

Being forced to do the Trudeau governments bidding versus being forced to shut up; take your pick.

But why employ such anti-democratic means as closure and undebated amendments to foist such anti-democratic legislation onto a nation that has shown no desire to have its internet habits so closely scrutinized (and potentially censored) by a government agency, the CRTC (the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission)?

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The short answer is that to the statist and bureaucratic minds who thought up C-10, it makes sense to restrict free speech in order to save it. Kill the patient just a little in order to save his life.

So what now?

Canadians wont notice the strong arm of government controlling their internet posting and browsing right away.

This is going to be creeping censorship death by a thousand bureaucratic edicts not online martial law.

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Thats how regulators work.

The government has even given the CRTC an extra budget of nearly $4 million this year just to figure out what to do with all its newfound power to enhance Canadas social cohesion, reduce online criticism against civil servants and expunge all hatred from social media.

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Bill C-10 is a blank cheque it will take the cabinet and the regulators some time to fill in.

First, they will go after sites and providers who most Canadians will give their nodding acceptance to being reined in.

White supremacists, for instance, and anti-immigrant pages. People (and more likely organizations) that post anti-trans or anti-gay messages.

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Maybe the incels the involuntary celibates such as Alek Minassian who preach hatred (and often violence) against feminists. Minassian drove a van down the sidewalk along Torontos Yonge St. in 2018 killing 10 and injuring 16 more.

But what about the recent spate of anti-Catholic hatred online, some of which has urged vandalism and violence in retaliation for the churchs operation of residential schools?

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Here the biases of the CRTC and our progressive elites are likely to be on glaring display.

If one form of hatred rankles politically correct sensibilities, expect it to be banned. But if our elites sympathize, even a little, with other forms, expect them to get a pass under C-10.

A couple of for-instances: Our prime minister was quick to label as domestic terrorism the hit-and-run killing of a Muslim family in London, Ont., but he has yet to name as terrorists Canadians who went to Syria to join ISIS.

And when Western oilfield workers drove to Ottawa in United We Roll caravans in 2019, the most senior civil servant in the country wanted them stopped because they had called Trudeau a traitor.

Expect Bill C-10 to be unevenly applied.

But the million little affronts to free speech will begin two to five years from now when the big targets have been mostly subdued.

To justify its continued existence, the CRTC will start going after little-guy posters with backwards views or news sites that question the settled science of climate change or the wisdom of our Indigenous welfare industry or race-based federal loans to businesses owned by racialized Canadians.

Thats where the real danger of C-10 lies, in the drip-drip-drip erosion of our freedoms.

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GUNTER: Bill C-10 will be creeping censorship - Toronto Sun

Pastor Greg Locke said Monday that in response to what he sees as First Amendment attacks on his church, the church will respond "with our Second Amendment right."

Locke, head of the Baptist Global Vision Bible Church in Juliet, Tennessee, was speaking to Stew Peters on the Red Voice Media program The Stew Peters Show about being banned from social media, as well as COVID-19 restrictions stopping large gatherings.

"People that say that this is not an attack have lost their mind. This is an absolute attack on our First Amendment right," Locke said in a clip surfaced by Right Wing Watch. "And I tell people all the time; look, when it comes to our churchand what we need to say and remaining openthat when they impede upon our First Amendment right, we'll meet them at the door of the tent with our Second Amendment right."

"They are trying to silence us, and I think our compromise is our silence. The fact that we are not willing to push back. And so I think big tech is in for a big rude awakening, because I think the Lord is going to turn this whole thing around, and they're going to start breaking this stuff up. Lawsuits are going to come in. And it's not going to be good for them, but I think it's going to turn out good for us," Locke continued.

Newsweek reached out to Locke for additional comment.

Since early in the pandemic, Locke resisted lockdown orders. In July of last year, he said in a Facebook video that he "will go to jail before I will close our church." In April of this year, he reiterated his statements that his church would stay open in the face of the military.

"They will roll up in tanks. They will drop down from helicopters. And I promise you, it won't be a dozen police out there from Wilson County and Mt. Juliet. It's going to take the entire United States military to roll up into this parking and tell us, 'Hey, we can't worship Jesus, and that we got to shut our church down and that we can't preach, and we can't pray,'" Locke said.

"You have lost your mind if you think I've given in to that! You have lost your mind if you think I'm giving into that mess! We are staying open forever," he added.

Locke also told his followers to not get the COVID vaccine, falsely claiming that "political elites" shown being vaccinated were instead given a placebo.

"I have not changed my stance. I haven't softened my stance. I have strengthened, strictly my stance against the vaccine," Locke said.

"I don't care what PfizerI don't care what any of the four groups do out there. Look, if you think... for one minute that those political elites actually got that vaccination, you are smoking meth in your mama's basement. Bunch of fake liars is what they are. They didn't shoot nothing in their arm but a bunch of sugar water," Locke insisted.

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Pastor Greg Locke Says Respond to Social Media 'Censorship' With 'Second Amendment Right' - Newsweek

Social media platforms shouldn't be trusted to censor scientific misinformation. As we've reported in recent months, such efforts by tech companies like Facebook are crippled by partisanship and double standards. The result is that some users (usually major media outlets) are allowed to botch the science with impunity, while others are silenced for committing the slightest of offenses, real or imagined. See my April story Follow The Science? How The Media's Hypocrisy Undermines Critical Thinking In The Age Of COVID for more on this.

Facebook safeguards the feelings of anti-GMO activists?

Right on cue, Facebook has offered up another example of why social media censorship fails. On June 19, the company flagged a 2015 post written by University of Florida geneticist Kevin Folta. [1] What was his offense? Folta took two anti-pesticide activists to task for making misleading statements about the weed killer glyphosate. They falsely claimed the herbicide causes cancer and alleged that the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) acknowledged the causal link between the two.

In reality, the journal published an opinion piece by two authors, one of whom was caught taking $100,000 from organic food companies to conduct studies that would make their products look good. That's very different than the NEJM taking an editorial stance on the health effects of glyphosate. For pointing out this obvious distinction, Folta was told his post violated Facebook's community standards and warned that his account may be suspended if he committed another offense.

There are two possibilities: Facebook isincapable of consistently settlingscience-based disputes, or the company uncritically acceptsreports of abuse from activists who want Foltaand other scientists de-platformed. Either is possible given the company's sloppy fact-checking history, but neither is excusable. Facebook's loosey-goosey community guidelines make this situation all the more ridiculous:

We want people to be able to talk openly about the issues that matter to them, even if some may disagree or find them objectionable. In some cases, we allow content for public awareness which would otherwise go against our Community Standards if it is newsworthy and in the public interest. We do this only after weighing the public interest value against the risk of harm ...

Presumably, this would include academics trying to politely educate the public about controversial science issues, but then we read this:

Our commitment to expression is paramount, but we recognize the internet creates new and increased opportunities for abuse We recognize that words mean different things or affect people differently depending on their local community, language, or background. We work hard to account for these nuances while also applying our policies consistently and fairly to people and their expression. Our enforcement of these standards relies on information available to us.

How's that for a loophole? The company says it may label content abusive if it's inauthentic or threatens its users' safety, privacy, or dignity. How Folta'scorrection crossedany of those lines is unclear to me. But then again, this whole exercise is inherently subjective; the censor defines the scope of censorship, and "risk of harm" is creepy, Orwellian language that could mean almost anything.

Who watches the watchers?

Science only works because researchers are free to present evidence that contradicts established dogma. This is the foundation of the whole enterprise."Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions," physicist Freeman Dyson wrote in The Scientist as Rebel. "But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellionagainst the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture."When the subject is the Catholic Church's treatment of Galileo, everybody in the academy seems to grasp the importance of open debate. [2] Though when they get to set the rules, many researchers are all too happy to help social media companies silence controversial voices.

The kicker, in this case, is that Folta's opinion was anything but contrary. Excluding people who get paid to assert that glyphosate causes cancer (trial lawyers, activists), nobody familiar with the weed killer thinks it's carcinogenic.

Before anyone unhelpfully points out that private companies aren't subject to the restrictions outlined in the Constitution, let me remind you why that's entirely irrelevant. Allowing powerful interests (say multi-billion-dollar corporations) to dictate the boundaries of public discourse comes with costs, one of which is that they may turn the ban hammer on you. The fact that you follow the science is clearly no check on a company that thinks itself qualified to judge your authenticity.

[1] Full disclosure: I co-host the Science Facts and Fallacies podcast with Folta.

[2] Parenthetically, this is a poorly understood event in the history of science. See this analysis by historian Thomas Woods.

See more here:
Social Media Censorship: Scientist Corrects Anti-GMO Silliness, Facebook Threatens To Ban Him - American Council on Science and Health

Senator Roger Wicker's (R-Miss.) PRO-SPEECH Act, introduced last Thursday, takes a novel approach to one of the most pressing threats to our democracy: Big Tech's control of our political discussion. While previous congressional efforts have focused on reforming Section 230, this bill takes a different tack and makes it an unfair trade practice to "bloc[k] or otherwise preven[t] a user or entity from accessing any lawful content" or to discriminate against any user "based on racial, sexual, religious, political affiliation, or ethnic grounds." The unfair trade practices approach in Wicker's bill offers a creative path forward to countering Big Tech's censorship.

The PRO-SPEECH Act empowers the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to handle any complaints of newly designated unfair trade practices. Relying on the FTC for enforcement has clear advantages. The agency could craft detailed, fact-specific settlements for the complaints it receives. It can also adapt more quickly than Congress to changing circumstances in the social media environment. Similar to the way in which it developed rules for online privacy and data breaches, the FTC could proceed in a methodical, small-steps approach to ensure fair practices and meaningful competition in the social media space.

Another one of the bill's strengths is its detailed disclosure requirementsan idea first put forth by the Trump administration's National Telecommunications and Information Administration Section 230 petition. Improved disclosure practices will help bring to light the ways that dominant platforms control public discourse through the promotion or silencing of certain content. The FTC here too could play a very useful role in setting forth the inevitably technical and complex rules that effective disclosure will require.

One final creative provision is worth noting. The act creates two exceptions from its prohibitions against blocking access to lawful content. One is for small platforms, and the other stipulates that prohibitions "shall not apply to the extent that an internet platform publicly proclaims to be a publisher." The bill essentially gives dominant social media platforms a choice: they can either choose to operate as a platform and be required to provide users access to all lawful content, or they can publicly declare themselves publishers and lose their immunity protections under Section 230.

Notably, these exceptions do not hold for the other unfair trade practices outlined by the bill. Whether a platform chooses to operate as a platform or publisher, it must abide by the bill's nondiscrimination and transparency requirements, as well as its prohibitions on unfair methods of competition.

The bill does have some areas for improvement, however. It could, for instance, go one step further to address the effects social media has on children. In what is perhaps the greatest and most ignored child experiment in human history, social media companies allow formation of accounts for minors without parental consent or mandatory parental control. If anything should qualify as an unfair trade practice, then recruiting, marketing to and profiting off of minors, all without parental consent, surely must.

The FTC has in the past taken the lead in responding to "Joe Camel" and Big Tobacco's marketing of harmful and addictive products to children. But it has so far been silent about Big Tech's marketing of the highly addictive product of social media to children. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt has demonstrated, social media use by minors leads to increased childhood depression, obesity, mental illness, emotional fragility and decreased school performance and social engagement. Wicker's bill suggests an approach by which government, at last, could muster a response to the myriad harms of social media on children.

Another issue the act could address is that of obscene or otherwise undesirable content. By prohibiting platforms from blocking access to any lawful content, the PRO-SPEECH Act would potentially make, for instance, Facebook's policy against nudity illegal, since most nude pictures are not illegal. Most platforms' current terms of service would become unlawful. Thus, the bill's critics claim that it would render social media a wasteland of pornography, profanity-laced trolling and annoying spam.

These are legitimate concerns, but there is a relatively simple solution. Wicker's bill could take one additional step, and incentivizeor requirethe platforms to hand the reins of their content-blocking or moderating tools to users themselves. Users could block pornography or other types of legal but unwanted content from their feeds. This solution to lawful, but unwanted, content would maximize consumer choice and free expression. Platforms' desire to centralize control over users' experiences and access to content is unjustified, except of course, insofar as it allows them to more easily segment markets for their advertisers and increases the power of their owners. They might at last be forced to give users the power to selectively filter and moderate what they see on their feeds.

Senator Wicker's thoughtful and innovative bill tackles these platforms' unjustified control and censorship head-on. Many of its provisions seem inspired by Justice Clarence Thomas's recent Supreme Court opinion, with an aim to stand up to legal scrutiny. There are areas where further improvements could be made, but overall, the PRO-SPEECH Act offers a strong, creative solution for protecting speech and competition in social media. Wicker has shown there are more strings for legislators to pull to curb Big Tech's censorship.

Adam Candeub is professor of law at Michigan State University and senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America. He was previously acting assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information. Clare Morell is a policy analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works on the EPPC's Big Tech Project. Prior to joining EPPC, she worked in both the White House Counsel's Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and nonprofit sectors.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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The PRO-SPEECH Act is a Creative Solution to Censorship | Opinion - Newsweek

Until my term expired a few weeks ago, I was editor-in-chief of the Cherwell, Oxford Universitys oldest student newspaper. It isnt a big operation, but it is independent. Founded in the 1920s, and supported by advertising revenue and college subscriptions, it will only remain in business so long as it retains the interest and loyalty of its readers. And that is what I thought was the point of journalism: not to print only what those in authority want us to, but to publish in the public interest, without fear or favour.

Sadly, not everyone seems to agree. Consider Oxford Student Unions recent vote calling for the setting up of a Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers. The name may be innocuous, but the idea behind it is chilling: to vet what student papers like the Cherwell publish in order to ensure that no problematic or insensitive content appears.

Surely, you might think, it is only under the worlds most oppressive regimes Putins Russia, or Xis China come to mind that journalists have their articles inspected by an external body of censors prior to publication? But the student union apparently does not see it this way. It believes articles are being printed that are implicitly racist or sexist or just generally inaccurate and insensitive. And that this justifies, in effect, stripping student papers of their editorial independence.

As another former Cherwell editor, the journalist Michael Crick, told the Telegraph: The key thing about journalism is it should remain independent for people in authority, and if the students union dont like it they can set up their own. The irony is that the student union does run and fund its own paper, The Oxford Student. If it really wants to impose troubling new editorial standards on its own newspaper, it can do so, and see whether readers (or the volunteer journalists) appreciate articles that have been vetted by a committee. But any attempt to extend the scheme to external publications would be horrifying. We dont even know what the consequences of breaching the policy will be, including whether there will be disciplinary action against those who refuse to participate.

And surely the policy fails on its own identity politics-influenced terms. Who is meant to be doing the vetting? As a disabled woman, I imagine that I would be considered well-qualified to judge the sensitivity of some articles based on my lived experience. But my lived experience is only of my own disability, not that of others. Especially at Oxford, where there is such a variety of backgrounds, no group of sensitivity readers could ever be large enough to cover all the issues that could be discussed in articles.

None of this was apparently considered before the motion was passed. If student papers had been informed that this vote was taking place, we could have mounted a defence and pointed out that we have our own rigorous editorial integrity processes in place.

If Oxford students dislike what their paper prints, then they can stop reading it. If this isnt enough to satisfy their outrage, they are free to lobby their college to unsubscribe or send in an official complaint. Student papers shouldnt have their independence compromised just because a student union committee thinks they arent being sensitive.

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Oxford's woke new censorship body is a threat to free expression - Telegraph.co.uk

Over the past couple of years, cryptocurrency has garnered increasing attention from businesses and governments alike. While crypto has soared in popularity, many remain skeptical of it, with some regulatory bodies being outright opposed to it. China has generally fallen into the latter category.

The Chinese government isnt entirely against cryptocurrency and crypto-adjacent tech, but rather seeks to nationalize them. Chinas patent office filed more than 2,000 blockchain patents between 2014 and 2019, which is almost 10 times as much as the U.S. These patents are part of Chinas move to establish a national digital currency, which has also included widespread restrictions.

In late May, the Chinese government announced it would crack down on crypto mining and trading activities. These actions follow a history of crypto restrictions, and theyre influencing the value of crypto. As they continue, they could start to shape more than just cryptocurrency, too.

Chinas crypto crackdown

Despite tight regulations, Chinese markets have traditionally been a hotspot for crypto. China has previously banned crypto exchanges but still allows citizens to hold cryptocurrency. Citizens have latched on to this right, with some estimates saying that the nation accounts for 70% of the global crypto supply.

Recently, though, the countrys government has taken a firmer stance against crypto. This May, it banned banks and payment companies from offering crypto payment services. Three days later, the Financial Stability and Development Committee started cracking down on mining and trading that could pose financial risks.

Since these restrictions went into place, police have arrested thousands of suspects and shut down major crypto services. These arrests are all related to money laundering charges, and the account shutdowns serve to prevent scams and preserve the yuans value. Critics have pointed out how many of these regulations are still vague and could mostly be about establishing Chinas digital yuan.

How these changes affect non-crypto businesses

Since China accounts for so much of the worlds crypto activity, its easy to understand how these actions affect cryptocurrency. As crypto and blockchain technologies play an increasingly significant role in businesses, the effects could ripple further. The recent ban on crypto payment services, for example, limits banks options for keeping up with digital disruption.

Losses from crypto-related crimes fell 57% in 2020 alone, so more companies have been looking into crypto services. Providing crypto support for various payments could help businesses adapt to digital-native consumers changing needs. If these companies cant legally use cryptocurrency, though, they may have trouble offering the speed, security, and variety customers want.

These rising regulations could also have positive effects. Cracking down on risky or illegitimate crypto services could help regulation-compliant businesses offer safe, licensed alternatives. This shift would both protect consumers from fraud and boost legitimate companies sales.

Impacts beyond China

These effects could potentially extend far beyond China, too. China is the second-largest global economy and is on track to become the largest by 2030. As a global economic powerhouse, changes in China would affect the near-countless international businesses that have operations there.

Chinese tech policies already deeply affect companies from other nations. For example, every company operating in China is required to give their source code, encryption keys, and backdoor access to the Chinese government. This law sets the precedent that China could force foreign businesses to comply with its cryptocurrency and blockchain regulations.

Companies in various industries outside of China, from automakers to financial services, have started dealing in crypto. As crypto becomes an increasingly central part of these businesses operations, these regulations will affect them more. Some may not be able to operate in China anymore or may have to tailor their international offerings.

If all of these actions are to bolster the digital yuan, their impact could reach even further. Such a major market shifting away from the U.S. dollar-dominated global financial system could disrupt the global economy. The dollar could lose much of its international power, and businesses with international dealings would follow.

Chinese regulations could shape the global economy

Since China is such a massive economy, any disruptions there could ripple throughout the world. As cryptocurrency starts to gain traction in international businesses, the countrys crypto crackdown wont come and go silently. While the specifics remain uncertain, the growing prevalence of crypto and Chinas international power mean these regulatory changes could have far-reaching effects.

If you're interested in writing for International Policy Digest - please send us an email via submissions@intpolicydigest.org

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Why China's New Mining Censorship Will Affect More Than Just Crypto - International Policy Digest