JOHN HOLCROFT; CHINA: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
political content—and are selling
those systems to anyone who
wants to use them.
Most of the clients are other
Chinese companies that partly use
them to avoid attracting Beijing’s
ire, scrubbing out mentions of
President Xi Jinping or other Chi-
nese leaders, and to manage debate
on sensitive topics such as recent
Hong Kong protests or the 1989
massacre in Tiananmen Square, ac-
cording to people who use or pro-
vide the services. Others can trawl
for politically sensitive comments
in languages common to restive re-
gions like Xinjiang and Tibet.
The widening availability of
such tools makes China’s largest
tech companies bigger partners in
Beijing’s censorship program and
allows companies to more effi-
ciently and cheaply police digital
content on their own, based onregulators’ guidelines.
It also increases the chances
other countries will use content
moderation the same way, as Chi-
nese systems become easier to
obtain.
“The global norm is trending to-
ward censorship over expression,”
said Matt Perault, a former director
of public policy at Facebook Inc.
and now director of Duke Univer-
sity’s Center on Science & Technol-ogy Policy. “Many countries looking
to import the tools and policy to
govern their internet will pick
China’s off-the-shelf technology.”
The coronavirus epidemic, which
has infected more than 100,
people world-wide, intensified de-
bate around China’s methods of
censorship. While President Xi has
repeatedly called on officials to
“strengthen the guidance of public
Please turn to page BY
our company wants to know what
type of mood you are in today.
At some workplaces, software
trawls email and Slack messages
for words that may be associated
with depression and fatigue. At others,
workers are asked to regularly log their
frame of mind with a smiley or frowning
face, or track their moods on apps.
Anxious to retain and energize staffers,
more companies say they are making em-
ployee happiness a priority. The shift has
fueled a cottage industry devoted to monitor-
ing, analyzing and improving workers’ moods.
It has also raised new questions about
whether employee privacy is at risk as compa-
nies monitor more of their workers’ behavior.At Amazon.com Inc., many workers re-
ceive a daily survey with questions like
whether they have had too many meetings
lately or if their manager has thanked them
in the past week. At Workday Inc., the hu-
man-resources and finance software maker
sends out employee surveys at the end of
every week on what the company calls
“Feedback Fridays.” At PepsiCo Inc., the
beverage giant invites employees to identify
systems that prevent them from getting
work done quickly via a tool known as the“process shredder.”
The corporate world’s increasing focus on
happiness reflects a reality, employers say:
With the U.S. unemployment rate near a 50-
year low, it can be difficult and expensive to
replace workers. In a tougher economy,
workers might just be happy to have a job,
but retention will always be a challenge for
top talent. Happy workers tend to be more
productive, according to University of Oxford
research published last year, and a strong
corporate culture can make workplaces more
attractive to potential job seekers.
“We’ve moved beyond just, ‘I want you to
get 10,000 steps every day,’ ” says Cindy
Bjorkquist, director of health and well being
Please turn to page BBYCHIPCUTTER
ANDRACHELFEINTZEIGMade-in-China
Censorship for Sale
Crude prices logged their worst
day since the financial crisis after
two of the world’s biggest oil pro-
ducers failed to agree on whether to
reduce global supply in the face of
the coronavirus’s devastating effecton demand.
On Friday, Brent crude, the global
benchmark, notched its largest one-
day percentage decline since Decem-
ber of 2008, falling 9.4% to $45.27.
U.S. crude futures declined 10.1% to
$41.28 a barrel, their largest one-day
percentage decline since November
of 2014.
“It’s a disaster,” said Robert
Yawger, director of the futures divi-
sion at Mizuho Securities U.S.A.hat
happened was really a worst-case
scenario situation.”
Saudi Arabia was unable to per-
suade Russia to join its plan for
deeper crude production cuts at a
gathering of the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries and
its allies in Vienna. The failure sig-
naled the end of a four-year collabo-
ration between OPEC’s member-na-
tions and 10 nonmembers led by
Russia, which collectively was known
as OPEC+.
“Today will be a regretful day,”
Saudi energy minister Abdulaziz bin
Salman told the gathering, according
to people who were present, after
Russian delegates insisted they
wouldn’t debate further action be-
fore the group’s next scheduled
meeting in June.
The splintering of OPEC+ exposes
stark differences in the importance
of oil in Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Russia’s economy is more diversified
and it doesn’t suffer as much as the
Saudi kingdom when oil prices hover
around $50 a barrel.
In addition, Moscow’s oil sales to
China haven't suffered as much
those of other producers. The Asian
giant has continued to buy large
Please turn to page BByDavid Hodari,
Summer Said
andBenoit FauconWASHINGTON—AT&T Inc. is
working with the Justice Department
as the government considers whether
to bring an antitrust case againstAl-
phabetInc.’sGoogle, two years after
the telecommunications giant was at
loggerheads with the department
over its acquisition ofTime Warner,
according to people familiar with the
matter.
AT&T has conferred several times
with Justice officials to share its
views that Google is stifling competi-
tion in the advertising sector, where
AT&T is seeking to make inroads with
its Xandr division, the people said.
Those discussions have included
an audience with the top DOJ offi-
cials overseeing the probe, they said,
and the Dallas company also is coop-
erating with a group of state attor-
neys general, led by Texas, that are
investigating Google’s ad practices.
Google has said the ad market-
place remains competitive, with the
search giant competing against com-
panies large and small to power digi-
tal advertising across the web.
It isn’t uncommon for rival compa-
nies and industry customers to speak
with the Justice Department during
an antitrust review, and the depart-
ment has spoken with many compa-
nies during its Google probe, includ-
ing Wall Street Journal publisher
News Corp, a longtime Google critic,
and others such as Yelp, DuckDuckGo
and Oracle Corp.
AT&T in recent years has said it
wants to take on Google and Face-
book Inc. in the fight for advertising
dollars. It has built its Xandr adver-
Please turn to page BAT&T Aids
DOJ’s Probe
Of Google’s
Dominance
BYBRENTKENDALL
ANDDREWFITZGERALDWeChat owner Tencent is one company selling content-moderation tools.Beijing
For China’s tech companies, con-
tent-moderation tools are becom-
ing a big business, and one that
could spread Chinese-style censor-
ship around the world.
U.S. tech companies already use
content-moderation systems to
screen out pornography, hate
speech and violence online, but
they have largely resisted using
them to filter political content.
Because of China’s demands that
online platforms remove all objec-
tionable content, including any-
thing politically sensitive, Chinese
companies are taking a much dif-
ferent road. Tech giants like Ali-
baba Group Holding Ltd. and Ten-
cent Holdings Ltd. are developing
sophisticated content-moderation
systems that intentionally targetBYSHANLIOil Skids
As Russia
Balks at
More Cuts
Moscow favors letting
cheap prices stir demandEmployers are turning to
sentiment-tracking
software, daily surveys and
apps to monitor workers’
mental states. Does this
pose a new threat to
employee privacy?
EXCHANGE
Coronavirus Cost
The economy may not
snap back when the
danger passesBHot Hand
A classic videogame’s
lesson about the
powerofstreaksBBUSINESS|FINANCE|TECHNOLOGY|MANAGEMENTDJIA25864.78g256.50 1.0% NASDAQ8575.62g1.9% STOXX 600366.80g3.7% 10-YR. TREAS.À2 4/32, yield 0.709% OIL$41.28g$4.62 GOLD$1,670.80À$4.40 EURO$1.1286 YEN105.SMILE!
Your Boss IsTrackingYour Happiness
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. *** Saturday/Sunday, March 7 - 8, 2020 |B