China’s Zhejiang province calls to limit tech giants’ power over online traffic

Communist Party officials in eastern China’s Zhejiang province have called for greater oversight of major internet platforms and their “traffic power”, warning that online traffic and algorithms had evolved into a force capable of shaping public discussion and sentiment.

The publicity department of the Zhejiang provincial party committee published the commentary on social media on Thursday, saying traffic could no longer be viewed simply as a data resource.

Zhejiang’s capital city, Hangzhou, is a major Chinese tech hub.

The department argued that public feed traffic should be treated as a semi-public utility rather than “a private asset owned by tech platforms”.