Google isn’t so happy with come actions coming out of China in attempts to stop the Hong Kong protests. The tech giant has accused china of spreading misinformation and discord among protestors.
The company took action and disabled 210 YouTube accounts they believed to have been working to influence viewers:
Earlier this week, as part of our ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations, we disabled 210 channels on YouTube when we discovered channels in this network behaved in a coordinated manner while uploading videos related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. This discovery was consistent with recent observations and actions related to China announced by Facebook and Twitter.
Shane Huntley – Threat Analysis Group, Google Security
We found use of VPNs and other methods to disguise the origin of these accounts and other activity commonly associated with coordinated influence operations.
The measures taken by Google are similar to action made by Twitter which found 936 accounts trying to undermine the Hong Kong protests against the Chinese regime. Facebook also took down 5 accounts, 3 groups and 7 pages for similar reasons.
Covert, manipulative behaviors have no place on our service — they violate the fundamental principles on which our company is built
Twitter
The individuals behind this campaign engaged in a number of deceptive tactics, including the use of fake accounts — some of which had been already disabled by our automated systems — to manage Pages posing as news organizations, post in Groups, disseminate their content, and also drive people to off-platform news sites. They frequently posted about local political news and issues including topics like the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the Chinese government.
Nathaniel Gleicher – Head of Cybersecurity Policy FB
