Google Removes Another 6,000 YouTube Channels Linked to Chinese Influence Operations

For those who’re questioning why all of the fuss about TikTok and its potential connection to the CCP, and why are governments all over the world more and more trying to ban the app?

That is one a part of it – each quarter, Google publishes its Threat Analysis Group (TAG) bulletin, which offers an outline of all of the malicious exercise that it’s detected and blocked throughout its platforms.

And it’s largely fairly easy – for instance, within the newest TAG bulletin for Q1 2023, there’s:

• The termination of 87 YouTube channels as a part of an investigation into coordinated affect operations linked to Russia
• The removing of 40 YouTube channels as a part of an investigation into coordinated affect operations linked to Iran
• The canceling of 1,088 YouTube channels as a part of an investigation into coordinated affect operations linked to Azerbaijan

All just about as you’ll count on.

However then, within the final observe of the report, there’s this:

“We terminated 6,285 YouTube channels and 52 Blogger blogs as part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to China. These channels and blogs mostly uploaded spammy content in Chinese about music, entertainment and lifestyle. A very small subset uploaded content in Chinese and English about China and U.S. foreign affairs.”

Each time, there are literally thousands of YouTube channels eliminated which can be linked to affect operations popping out of China, that are a part of a broader investigation into a gaggle referred to as ‘Dragonbridge’ which seems to unfold pro-China propaganda by means of western social media channels.

The truth is, in 2022 alone, Google disrupted over 50,000 situations of Dragonbridge exercise, throughout YouTube, Blogger, and AdSense, whereas Google additionally claims to have terminated over 100,000 Dragonbridge accounts in complete.

And observe, that is accounts and channels, not particular person movies or posts. The precise scale of the operation is very large, and it’s an enormous, ongoing effort for Google to detect and take away these operations, which seems to seed pro-CCP content material throughout numerous channels.

It stands to cause, then, that if Chinese affect operations are concentrating on western social networks, that they’re in all probability additionally wanting to make use of Chinese-owned platforms which have publicity to the west for a similar function – whereas tensions between western governments and China, over the conflict in Ukraine, spy balloons, and so on., are additionally not serving to TikTok’s case.

There’s a reasonably clear correlation between Chinese affect packages and social media platforms, and China has extra linkage to TikTok, one of many largest leisure platforms on the earth, than every other.

It’s not the one cause, however once you see the size of such efforts in Google’s reviews – and take into account that this is just one platform, and their findings on this entrance – you will get some sense of the potential concern at hand that safety officers are warning towards.

You possibly can take a look at Google’s newest TAG Bulletin here.