A human rights watchdog agency has released a report detailing a troubling discovery regarding the neglect and oversight witnessed on Chinese social media outlets to mitigate copious amounts of anti-Black racist content posted on their platforms.
Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to take action and adopt measures to mitigate racist content directed at Black individuals.
“Chinese social media platforms, which are quick to delete content critical of the Chinese government, should remove racist content that violates their community standards on hate speech, or might incite racial discrimination or violence,” the report says.
There are numerous videos and posts that the agency reviewed portraying Black people through the lens of offensive racial stereotypes.
There’s one kind of video that has been widely circulated on Chinese social media, depicting Chinese people as wealthy saviors of African citizens who are characterized as primitive or impoverished and providing them with jobs, housing, food and money.
Other common posts include debasing interracial relationships between Chinese and Black people. In these instances, users accuse Black people of “contaminating” the Chinese race. Even some Chinese women who have posted their Black partners have been subjected to harassment, death threats and threats of rape.
Additionally, some social users in China have adopted racist symbols, called for the Chinese government to ban Black people from becoming permanent residents in the country and marrying Chinese people, and have even made calls to kill Black people.
Human Rights Watch says this content has been shared broadly on Chinese social outlets such as Bilibili, Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu, despite the fact that these platforms all have published community standards and guidelines banning content promoting racial or ethnic hatred and discrimination. However, none of these outlets have taken routine action…
Read the full article here