Google Deleted More Than 2500 Chinese YouTube Channels; These Channels Were Used For Propaganda

by Shatakshi Gupta

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, many countries are lobbying against China. At the same time, after violent clashes in Ladakh, India started taking stringent moves against China.  First India banned 59 apps from China.  After this, 47 applications were banned again.  Now Google has also given a big blow against China.  Google has deleted more than 2,500 YouTube channels of China.

Also read: 59 Chinese Apps banned by India; TikTok, ShareIt, and many other

 Confusing information was being spread through Chinese YouTube channels

 It is being told that misleading information was being spread through these Chinese YouTube channels.  On getting this information, the video-sharing platform has removed these Chinese YouTube channels.  Google said that these YouTube channels have been removed from YouTube between April and June.  Google says that such an action has been taken under the ongoing investigation for Influence Operations related to China. There were some political facts in the content of these channels.

Google has given this information in the quarterly bulletin of the operation running for its misleading information.  It has been told by YouTube that the content which was being posted on these YouTube channels was generally spammy, non-political content, but there were also some political issues.  However, Google did not disclose the names of these channels but has given some other information.  The company said that links to videos with similar activity were seen on Twitter.

In April, it was identified by the social media analytics company Graphica in the Disinformation Campaign.  The Chinese Embassy in America has not yet commented on this.  Earlier China has completely denied all the allegations related to spreading misleading and wrong information.

 Companies like Google and Facebook are constantly reporting misleading information and updates on fake news about how they are fighting online propaganda.  Several attempts have been made in the last 4 years to avoid repeating online propaganda in the US presidential election in 2016.  In its bulletin, Google also mentioned the activities related to Iran and Russia.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill banning federal employees from using video-sharing app TikTok on government-issued devices. White House has been mulling a ban on the app since weeks now.

The Bytedance owned company has been asked to either sell its operations to US company Microsoft or to face a ban.

 It is worth noting that recently, India has also banned many Chinese applications.  Apart from this, many other Chinese apps are being closely monitored.