2,600 Chinese Channels Were Banned From YouTube Just In Q2 2020

Yesterday, Google said that it banned nearly 2,600 Chinese channels from its video-sharing platform YouTube in the second quarter of this year while it was investigating coordinated influence operations on the site.

Just in June, the tech giant removed almost half of these channels, as reported by its Threat Analysis Group, which tackles government-backed attacks and hacking. According to Google, most of them posted non-political content and spam only, but some uploaded content related to the racial justice protests in the United States, which were triggered by the death of George Floyd by some policemen. The language used in those videos was mainly Chinese.

Besides, YouTube took down many channels that were linked to Iran and Russia with apparent ties to influence campaigns.

Google released the report just months ahead of the presidential election in the US when tech companies are enhancing their security operations to avoid similar pitfalls with those in 2016. At the time, the election was heavily manipulated by Russia through the exploitation of platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google with the intent to affect the outcome.

Also, the channels were banned at a time when the tension is increasing between China and the US over technology. Last week, Donald Trump called for a ban on Chinese social platform TikTok with accusations of spying. The US President also said a US company could buy the app and Microsoft is attempting to win this deal.

Several months ago, Google banned Chinese giant phone maker Huawei from using its apps and service on its new phone following a series of disputes between the US and the Chinese government over national security concerns.

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