Google purges over 7,500 YouTube channels linked to malicious operations

Google took down greater than 7,500 YouTube channels in Q1 2023 as a part of its investigation into coordinated affect operations, and terminated 6,285 YouTube channels and 52 Blogger blogs alone linked to China.

These channels and blogs largely uploaded spammy content material in Chinese about music, leisure and life-style.

“A really small subset uploaded content material in Chinese and English about China and U.S. international affairs,” mentioned Google.

Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) mentioned it additionally terminated 40 YouTube channels sharing content material in Persian, English, Hindi and Urdu that was supportive of the Iranian authorities and demanding of protesters in Iran.

The workforce terminated 1,088 YouTube channels, sharing content material in Azerbaijani that was supportive of Azerbaijan and demanding of Armenia and critics of the Azerbaijani authorities.

It additionally blocked 2 domains from eligibility to seem on Google News surfaces and Discover as a part of its investigation into coordinated affect operations linked to people from Poland.

“The marketing campaign was sharing content material in Polish that was supportive of Russia and demanding of the United States and Ukraine. We acquired leads from Mandiant, which is now a part of Google Cloud,” mentioned the corporate.

Google additionally terminated 87 YouTube channels linked to the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA).

“We terminated 4 YouTubechannels as a part of our investigation into coordinated affect operations. The marketing campaign was sharing content material in German that was vital of Ukrainian refugees,” the corporate added.

(With inputs from IANS)