China: Human Rights Watch has stated that racist content targeting Black people is widely circulated on China’s social media platforms, where it is being used to attract traffic and generate profit.
The rights group reviewed hundreds of videos and posts from 2021 on platforms including Weibo, a short messaging app, and Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, and found that content often portrayed Black people through “offensive racial stereotypes.”
“Such content was also circulated on the video-sharing platforms Bilibili and Livestream, the video app Kuaishou, and the social media and e-commerce site Xiaohongshu,” the group said, noting that the companies had failed to deal with it.
“The amount and extremity of racist content on the Chinese internet suggest that the platforms either are not meeting their own standards for banning racist content or that their policies are inadequate when addressing racist content, both contrary to their human rights responsibilities,” the report remarked.
Human Rights Watch pointed out that influencer videos depicting Black Africans as primitive or dependent on Chinese people as their saviours were particularly widely shared, while Black people who married Chinese were accused in online posts of “contaminating” and threatening the Chinese race. Furthermore, Chinese in relationships with Black people were accused of being traitors.
The group noted that most Chinese social media platforms have community standards and guidelines that ban content promoting racial or ethnic hatred and discrimination.
According to the statement, Bilibili, Kuaishou, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu did not respond to the letters questioning the racist content. The group urged the platforms to take down videos and posts that violate community standards on hate speech or might incite racial discrimination or violence.
“Chinese who condemned racism or provided support to victims of racism were also targeted,” the statement added.
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