Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - After Twitter and Facebook, Google is now also curbing China's disinformation campaign on the Hong Kong protests. Yesterday the web giant closed 210 accounts on YouTube because they were part of a "coordinated" attempt to post material related to the events taking place in the territory.
According to the company, the closed channels are "a coordinated way of uploading videos" linked to "the Hong Kong protests". Google has not directly accused China, but stated that its decision was linked to "recent observations and actions related to China, announced by Facebook and Twitter".
On August 19th, Twitter blocked 936 accounts from China, because they violate "the policy on manipulation of the platform", including spam, coordinated activities, false accounts and evasion.
Soon after, Facebook also removed seven pages, three groups and five accounts implicated in what it called "false and coordinated behavior, part of a small network that originated in China and focused on Hong Kong".
In China, Twitter, Facebook and many other Western social platforms are blocked by the "Great Wall of Fire" , which filters content. In Hong Kong, pro-democracy demonstrators use social media to keep in touch with each other and spread news and facts about their situation thorughout the world. The most used social network is Telegram. In the past, Facebook and Google have tried to come to terms with the Chinese government, offering their services and accepting some censorship. But no conclusions have been reached.
