YouTube removes nearly 11,000 propaganda videos, primarily from China and Russia

[ad_1] What simply occurred? YouTube is not slowing down in the case of eradicating propaganda from the platform. Within the second quarter alone, the Google-owned agency eliminated virtually 11,000 movies that fall into this class from China, Russia, and elsewhere.

An replace from Google's Risk Evaluation Group reveals that of the practically 11,000 YouTube channels eliminated in Q2, greater than 7,700 of them had been linked to state-sponsored campaigns from China.

The campaigns shared content material in English and Chinese language that was supportive of China and important of the Philippines. In addition they voiced help for President Xi Jinping and coated US international affairs.

Whereas Chinese language content material made up nearly all of eliminated channels, over 2,000 of them had been selling Russian propaganda. As we have seen prior to now, these campaigns are created in a number of languages, help Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and are crucial of Ukraine, NATO, and the West.

Google additionally terminated YouTube channels, Adverts accounts, and a weblog linked to Russian state-controlled media outlet RT. The outlet was blocked by Western social media firms in 2022, although Google has been preventing towards RT misinformation for years, lengthy earlier than the warfare started.

Along with China and Russia, Google eliminated channels that had been sharing content material in Turkish that was supportive of the Turkish Victory Occasion, and a number of other linked to Iran that had been supportive of the nation's authorities and Palestine whereas being crucial of Israel. There have been additionally campaigns linked to Azerbaijan, Israel, Romania, and Ghana.

In Could 2022, YouTube stated it had eliminated greater than 70,000 movies and 9,000 channels associated to the warfare in Ukraine, typically because of the invasion being known as a "liberation mission." The content material went towards the corporate's main violent occasions coverage, which applies to the denial of occasions such because the Holocaust and Sandy Hook.

Google suspended all promoting in Russia, together with on YouTube, following the invasion. It additionally refused to take away content material referring to the warfare that Russia deemed unlawful, which led to Google Information being banned within the nation.

In October final 12 months, Russia hit Google with a positive of two undecillion rubles over YouTube blocking entry to Russian channels. That was about $20.5 decillion on the time, fairly much more than the estimated world GDP of round $100 trillion.