And for probably the most half, it seems fairly simple – 3 YouTube channels shut down in relation to efforts to criticize Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, an AdSense account linked to affect operations in Turkey, 42 YouTube channels and a pair of Adverts accounts terminated as a part of an investigation into coordinated affect operations linked to Iraq.

However then there’s this:

“We terminated 4361 YouTube channels as a part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated affect operations linked to China. These channels principally uploaded spammy content material in Chinese language about music, leisure, and way of life. A really small subset uploaded content material in Chinese language and English about China and U.S. international affairs. These findings are per our earlier reviews.”

That looks like so much proper? 4300 YouTube channels – not simply particular person movies – in a single month, is numerous content material.

However as YouTube notes, that’s really in step with earlier TAG reviews.

Going again over its most up-to-date TAG updates, Google eliminated:

• 5,460 YouTube channels in December, additionally linked to coordinated affect operations linked to China
• 15,368 Chinese language YouTube channels in November
• 3,311 YouTube channels in October
• 1,217 in September
• 1,196 in August
• 850 in July

All of those are related to the identical investigation into coordinated affect operations linked to China, and all of them have the identical description because the one above, regarding “spammy content material” round leisure, with some notes on US/China affairs. That’s over 31,000 YouTube channels eliminated during the last seven months.

So what’s happening? What, precisely, are these Chinese language affect operations trying to obtain, and are they gaining any traction via this broad-reaching YouTube push?

It appears, based mostly on Google’s description, that the primary goal of this effort is to first construct an viewers within the app with partaking, gentle content material, earlier than then utilizing that attain to sprinkle in some pro-China sentiment, as a way to seed it amongst broader audiences.

That then permits the CCP, and/or associated teams, to doubtlessly sway public opinion via refined means, by gently nudging these viewers in direction of a extra constructive view of China’s actions.

That’s typically been China’s MO with its data operations – on Q and A platform Quora, for instance, there are lots of examples of individuals asking questions on China, solely to see glowingly constructive replies from customers.

It appears that evidently’s the modus operandi right here too, with Chinese language-originated teams searching for to construct audiences on YouTube to then set up distribution and dissemination chains for pro-China propaganda.

Nevertheless it’s actually a big push, and it’s fascinating to notice simply how a lot China is ramping up its exercise over time. That probably means that it sees YouTube as a robust vector for affect, which additional underlines the significance of social platforms taking proactive, definitive steps to cease such packages earlier than they’ll achieve traction.

We’ve requested Google for more information on the specifics of those banned channels, and we’ll replace this publish if and once we hear again.

You possibly can learn Google’s newest TAG report right here.