If you’re wondering why all the fuss about TikTok and its potential connection to the CCP, and why are governments around the world increasingly looking to ban the app?
This is one part of it – every quarter, Google publishes its Threat Analysis Group (TAG) bulletin, which provides an overview of all the malicious activity that it’s detected and blocked across its platforms.
And it’s mostly pretty straightforward – for example, in the latest TAG bulletin for Q1 2023, there’s:
The termination of 87 YouTube channels as part of an investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Russia
The removal of 40 YouTube channels as part of an investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Iran
The canceling of 1,088 YouTube channels as part of an investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Azerbaijan
All pretty much as you would expect.
But then, in the last note 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.”
Every time, there are thousands of YouTube channels removed that are linked to influence operations coming out of China, which are part of a broader investigation into a group called ‘Dragonbridge’ which looks to spread pro-China propaganda through western social media channels.
In fact, in 2022 alone, Google disrupted over 50,000 instances of Dragonbridge activity, across YouTube, Blogger, and AdSense, while Google also claims to have terminated over 100,000 Dragonbridge accounts in total.
Read more: socialmediatoday.com
