Google pulled 210 YouTube channels from its platform, saying that they appeared to be part of a coordinated disinformation campaign in response to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Twitter Inc. TWTR, -1.45% and Facebook Inc. FB, -0.82% made similar moves earlier this week, citing evidence that the Chinese government was behind efforts to discredit the protesters.
“This discovery was consistent with recent observations and actions related to China announced by Facebook and Twitter,” Alphabet’s GOOGL, -0.01% GOOG, -0.14% Google wrote in a blog post Thursday. It didn’t specifically blame Beijing for the campaign. More than 5% of the tweets posted this year by the accounts Twitter removed included links to YouTube, said Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington, who studies online disinformation
Hong Kong has been racked by a series of massive protests this summer, in response to proposed legislation to allow the extradition of Hong Kong residents to stand trial in mainland China. The legislation were tabled, but demonstrations have continued in the semi-autonomous territory.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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