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Google removes over 2,500 China-linked YouTube channels for influence operations

Google removes over 2,500 China-linked YouTube channels for influence operations

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Google has banned 2,500 YouTube channels tied to China in an effort to remove disinformation on the video sharing platform. 

The tech giant said these channels were removed between April and June as part of its "ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to China." About half of these channels were taken down in June. 

According to various reports, most of these channels posted only spam and non-political content but some of them posted content about the racial justice protests in the US triggered by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The content was primarily posted in Chinese.

Google did not offer further details of these channels or identify them, except to link the videos to similar activities spotted by Twitter and to a disinformation campaign identified in April by social media analytics company Graphika, according to Reuters

The channels were taken down at a time when relations between the US and China over technology had become increasingly tense. US president Donald Trump last week called for a ban on ByteDance-owned TikTok in the US over fears of spying by China.

Following the US presidential election in 2016, companies such as Google and Facebook have been issuing regular updates on how they’re combating online propaganda as concerns over disinformation seeded by foreign countries emerged. During the same election, Russian government-linked actors sent out hundreds of thousands of deceptive messages into the social media ecosystem.

Google also said YouTube took down dozens of channels linked to Russia and Iran that had apparent ties to influence campaigns.

Last year, Facebook and Twitter had also removed pages, groups, and accounts related to Hong Kong's protest against the extradition bill and the Hong Kong government. These companies said the removed content was either related to the Chinese government or originated in China. 


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