Re:Bullying? (Score 5, Informative)

It's likely (not that Reuters have bothered to link to the primary source) that the Chinese word was "qi fu", which is extremely commonly used in Chinese to mean "bullying", but in a wider sense, including "mistreatment" and "unfair treatment". So bullying is a technically correct translation, but it doesn't carry quite the same nuance as in English. It's not clear what the source of the English statement is, but if the original Chinese statement is this one (http://www.cca.cn/zxsd/detail/29897.html), it's much more neutral in tone:

Some common unfair applications of algorithms in the field of online commerce are highly technical and obfuscated, and they subtly affect consumers' purchasing decisions. It is difficult for individual consumers to contend with such algorithms on their own.

In fact, a quick scan of that statement don't show any mention of "bullying". So either the English is probably not a direct translation of the Chinese statement.