Nearly 11,000 YouTube channels and accounts linked to state propaganda campaigns by China, Russia, plus a handful of other countries and sources were removed in the second quarter, Google announced on Monday.
More than 7,700 channels were linked to campaigns by China, with content in both Chinese and English, while over 2,000 (in multiple languages) were linked to Russia, according to a report by CNBC, which said 20 channels, plus four ad accounts and a blog were linked to RT, a Russian state media outlet.
The removal of accounts was done by the Google Threat Analysis Group in a bid to counter global disinformation campaigns and “coordinated influence” operations, it said, adding that over 23,000 accounts were taken down in the first quarter.
Meta said last week that it has been doing similar work, removing about 10 million profiles in the first half of this year for impersonating large content producers and “spammy” or inauthentic content such as material created by artificial intelligence tools.
Meta said it now has technology that can detect duplicate videos and reduce the distribution of images or videos that are reused without crediting the original creator.
These moves come at a time when AI has made it easier to mass-produce content for social outlets. Low quality content has become known as “AI slop.”
Read the full report: CNBC.
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