cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/44151556

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Anti-Black videos are the most pervasive, but anti-Indian videos peddling strikingly similar tropes are also shared. These videos are easy to find on social media platforms, including WeChat; Kuaishou; and TikTok’s Chinese version, Douyin, despite China’s generally strict controls on content. Regulations introduced in 2023 even specifically ban using AI to create racist content. While most videos don’t reveal which AI tools were used to make them, the watermarks on a few show that they were made using domestically developed products such as Alibaba’s Qwen or ByteDance’s Doubao and Jimeng.

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Of course, racist AI slop is far from unique to China. A report from Media Matters for America catalogued examples of AI-generated racist videos that went viral on TikTok. Those videos use tropes common in the United States—portraying Black people as criminals, Jewish people as money-obsessed, and East Asians as eating pets. Similar videos for British audiences often show Muslim migrants arriving on boats.

The videos that spread on Chinese social media reveal how racist tropes are also powerful in the country, despite priding itself on its long-standing friendship with African nations such as Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Scholars trace the emergence of anti-Black ideas in China to the late 19th century. As intellectuals grappled with the country’s humiliation at the hands of Western imperialists, they imbibed imported social Darwinism and pseudoscientific racism, blending them with existing ideas about social hierarchies. This led to some intellectuals embracing the idea of the “yellow race” and positioning it as above other races in the global order.

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In September, there was online uproar after it emerged that a few male international students were temporarily staying at an all-women dormitory at the Chongqing University of Technology, with much of the coverage emphasizing that the foreigners were Black. The university soon apologized and moved the foreigners elsewhere.

These anti-Black AI videos may be embarrassing for China’s government, which is touchy about allegations of racism that could undermine important international relationships.

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A 2022 BBC exposé revealed that Chinese entrepreneurs had for years been selling videos of African children speaking Chinese—including Malawian children yelling “I’m a Black monster and my IQ is low.” This led to protests in Malawi and the arrest of one Chinese citizen. Soon after, a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official vowed a crackdown on racist videos.

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