HK crisis: YouTube takes down 210 accounts criticising protests
SANFRANCISCO/HONGKONG: Alphabet Inc’s Google announced on Thursday that its YouTube streaming video service disabled 210 channels appearing to engage in a coordinated influence operation around the Hong Kong protests, days after Twitter and Facebook said they dismantled a similar campaign originating in mainland China.
“This discovery was consistent with recent observations and actions related to China announced by Facebook and Twitter,” said Shane Huntley, one of Google’s security leaders, in a blog post. But he stopped short of identifying the origin of the channels.
Twitter and Facebook on Monday said that channels they had removed had engaged in a statebacked effort by China to undermine the protests in Hong Kong through posts calling participants dangerous and vile extremists. “We are deeply concerned by Chinese attempts to manipulate public opinion by spreading disinformation about the situation in Hong Kong,” a US state department spokeswoman told Reuters.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang declined direct comment on YouTube’s decision, but said the Chinese people’s greatest wish was for the chaos and violence to end in Hong Kong.
“The will of 1.4 billion people cannot be blocked or controlled, and of course cannot be shut out,” he told reporters. The Chinese mission to the UN sent Reuters a link to a story from the ruling Communist Party media outlet People’s Daily that said Twitter and Facebook “abused media freedom” in cracking down on accounts that had revealed violence in the protests.
CANADA’S HK STAFF TOLD NOT TO TRAVEL
The Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong said on Friday local staff aren’t allowed to travel outside the city including to mainland China, in a move that comes days after a British Consulate worker was detained there.
It didn’t say whether the travel restriction was directly related to the detention of the British Consulate staffer, Simon Cheng Mankit, who went missing two weeks ago after he went on a business trip to the mainland city from Hong Kong’s high-speed crossborder rail terminal.
Meanwhile, Simon’s family have rejected a “made-up” report by Chinese state media that he was detained in the mainland for visiting prostitutes.