Google said on Monday it has taken down almost 11,000 channels on YouTube for spreading propaganda. It allegedly linked 7,700 of them to China, and another 2,000 to Russia.
Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said the Chinese YouTube channels distributed content in English and Mandarin that promoted China’s interests, glorified dictator Xi Jinping, and criticized America’s positions on international affairs. Some of the Chinese channels were also highly critical of the Philippines, which is engaged in maritime territorial disputes with China.
The Russian channels allegedly employed various languages to criticize Western governments, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Ukraine. Some of the Russian channels also spread information supportive of China and Iran.
TAG’s latest quarterly report also announced the termination of YouTube influence channels linked to Turkey, Romania, Iran, Ghana, Azerbaijan, and Israel.
The 43 channels linked to Turkey were “sharing content in Turkish that was supportive of the Turkish Victory Party.”
The Victory Party, known by its Turkish acronym ZP, is a nationalist party strongly critical of the Turkish government for taking in large numbers of refugees from Syria. It also opposes the government’s efforts to negotiate with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a violent separatist organization.
ZP leader Umit Ozdag was arrested in January for allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and “inciting hatred against migrants.”
TAG said the 12 terminated Romanian channels were “sharing content in Romanian that was supportive of a specific Romanian political party,” but did not name the party.
The alleged Ghanian influence operation consisted of a single Google Ads account and a domain now blocked from appearing on Google News. TAG said it was the work of a “digital marketing firm” that was “sharing content in English about candidates in the Ghanaian presidential election.” The same influence campaign was evidently detected by OpenAI and Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
The Azerbaijani influence operation allegedly encompassed over a thousand YouTube channels that were “supportive of Azerbaijan and critical of Armenia and critics of the Azerbaijani government.” TAG detected and shut down several hundred of these channels each month during the second quarter of 2025.
Iran’s network included 12 YouTube channels “sharing content in Arabic that was supportive of the Iranian government and Palestine and critical of Israel.”
In June, TAG shut down four YouTube channels linked to Israel that were “sharing content in English, French, German, Italian, and Greek that was supportive of Israel and critical of Palestine.”
TAG said it took down a total of more than 23,000 accounts in the first quarter, which was “in line with our expectations of this regular and ongoing work.”
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