Sharp increase in blocked YouTube channels linked to Russian influence operations

In July alone, Google terminated almost 13,000 YouTube channels linked to Russian and Chinese coordinated influence operations. The number of terminated Russian channels spiked dramatically in recent months.

In July, Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) terminated 7,441 YouTube channels as part of their investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Russia, according to a bulletin.

Of those, 7,319 YouTube channels were linked to “a Russian consulting film,” which was sharing content in Russian that was supportive of Russia and critical of Ukraine and the West.

Additionally, dozens of other Russian YouTube channels were closed due to other investigations. OpenAI provided the leads for an investigation of 27 YouTube channels that were sharing content in English, Polish, French and Russian that was supportive of Russia and critical of Ukraine and Western institutions.

As revealed by TAG Bulletins, such a high number of blocked Russian channels on YouTube is new. Usually, TAG blocks up to a few hundred channels linked to Russian coordinated influence operations each month. However, this number jumped to 2378 in May, followed by 1253 blocked channels in June.

The increase in malignant activity was followed by the uncovering of a Russian-linked social media influence campaign in September. This campaign was aimed at swaying the 2024 US presidential elections. It included at least 400 posts by Tenet Media, an online content company. In response, YouTube pulled down the related channels. US authorities charged two employees of the Russian state media network RT.

TAG also blocked 5,554 YouTube channels linked to Chinese coordinated influence operations. This number was the highest since September last year.

“The coordinated inauthentic network uploaded content in Chinese and English about China and US foreign affairs. These findings are consistent with our previous reports,” TAG said.

A Chinese influence operator, dubbed DragonBridge, is persistent at generating vast amounts of fake content on YouTube and other platforms to undermine the US government, society, and democracy. Each quarter Google removes thousands of threat actor’s attempts.

DragonBridge spreads narratives on a wide range of news topics, ranging from elections in Taiwan and the Israel-Hamas war to content critical of the US.

YouTube’s policies prohibit any content that aims to mislead voters or makes false claims that could discourage voting. The platform doesn’t allow the impersonation of political candidates and parties, content manipulation, hate speech, misattributed content, violent or graphic content, or any content that encourages violence, spreads deceptive information, or links to harmful content.