Chinese Communist Party propaganda
is filling up searches on Google, YouTube and Bing
Is the Party winning the narrative war?
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
The Chinese Communist Party is trying to control what you think.
And Google, YouTube, and Microsoft Bing are helping them do it.
That’s the findings of this new report by
the Brookings Institution and the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
“Content reflecting Beijing’s position on its human-rights record and the origins
of Covid-19 now regularly appears among top results on Google, Bing and YouTube.”
Think about that. The authoritarian regime that unleashed a global pandemic
because of its coverup and lies is now getting top placement on the world’s biggest search engines.
The Chinese Communist Party considers itself at war with the United States.
When Americans’ view of China is being influenced
by an openly declared enemy, that war can be won without firing a single shot.
As one expert told the Wall Street Journal,
“Search is particularly invisible and assumed to be neutral. There’s this idea that if you
use it to do your own research, you are in control. You’re going to get the truth.”
But that isn’t the case. Unless you’re a regular China Uncensored viewer,
your views of China are being carefully curated by search engines.
And behind search engines is the influence of the Chinese regime.
I’ll show you how the Chinese Communist Party is doing it right after this short commercial break.
Welcome back. Unless all you saw was a black screen, in which case
it's a good bet YouTube demonetized this episode. You see, while Chinese Communist
Propaganda has been dominating YouTube search results, China Uncensored often gets buried.
We’re constantly demonetized when we cover topics like
Hong Kong,
Covid,
and social unrest in China.
We couldn’t even afford to make China Uncensored,
if it weren’t for viewer support. Viewer support is the main source of our income.
If you can, help us keep up the fight against the Chinese Communist Party by contributing
to our show through the crowd funding website Patreon. All it takes is a dollar an episode.
Or you can make a one time contribution. Check that out at
chinauncensored.tv/support. The link is below.
So how is China getting its propaganda to the top of Google, YouTube, and Bing searches?
Researchers spent 120 days looking at 12 China related keywords,
on topics like Xinjiang and Covid-19.
What they found was shocking.
Take Covid. It’s widely accepted the virus originated in China,
possibly even leaking from a Chinese research lab. Regardless,
it was the Chinese Communist Party’s six-week coverup of the original Wuhan
outbreak and its other horrible policies that allowed it to spread around the world.
But the Communist Party says,
“What? No! Covid actually came from a US military biolab in Fort Detrick!”
Chinese state-run media dominate searches for Fort Detrick. Here’s the results on YouTube.
Things like “Concerns raised over US Fort Detrick Lab as Covid-19 rages”
and “How terrifying is the history of US Fort Detrick lab?” All of these
top results are videos made by official mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party.
Then there’s Xinjiang, the region where the Chinese Communist Party is committing
genocide on the Uyghur population. An estimated 1 to 2 million people
are in concentration camps. Women are being raped and sterilized.
And yet, search results for Xinjiang across Google and Bing
“regularly returned state-backed content across news searches, with at least one
Chinese state-backed news outlet appearing in the top 10 results in 88% of searches.”
On YouTube it was worse. “State media appeared
among the top 10 results in searches for ‘Xinjiang’ in 98% of searches.”
I too want to know what state-run CGTN has to say about the so-called re-education camp in Xinjiang.
You may also remember the recent release of the Xinjiang Police Files.
It’s a treasure trove of data and photos from the Uyghur internment camps in Xinjiang.
Dr. Adrian Zenz, a Senior Fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation,
did a lot of the research to verify this data.
Well, shortly after the Xinjiang Police Files came out,
Chinese state-run media attacks on Dr. Zenz came up on the first page of Google searches,
and four of the top 10 YouTube videos were also attacks from state-run media. The number 1 result
was “What's behind extremist Adrian Zenz's report and genocide lies?” Along with a photo of the CIA.
Gee, I wonder what CGTN is trying to say. Or what about result number 10 from my favorite
state-run media, the Global Times. The one that calls Zenz a “swindler.” I’m surprised
they didn’t call him a charlatan, a fraud, a confidence trickster.
But the point is, Chinese state propaganda is dominating these search results.
As one of the lead researchers on this report says,
“Someone who’s never even encountered this narrative but searches for Xinjiang on Google
is likely to encounter Beijing-friendly content that whitewashes China’s rights record.”
And they’re not just pushing nonsense about China’s human rights.
China is also helping push Russian propaganda about Ukraine. Many Western social media
platforms have banned Russian state-run media, or at least de-ampliflied them.
And yet “China’s ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats and
state media routinely amplify Kremlin conspiracy theories.”
This tells me a few things. One—despite Beijing officially saying they don’t endorse Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine, the reality is they’re waging a propaganda war that promotes Putin’s narrative.
Two—YouTube,
Google, all these social media platforms can successfully block Russian propaganda,
but they’re choosing not to do the same for China.
How is the Chinese regime getting away with this?
It’s no accident that Chinese propaganda is getting onto the front page of Google.
It’s the result of a huge amount of effort, money, and manpower from the Chinese Communist Party.
The Party leverages the entire Chinese state media apparatus to churn out content.
As one of the researchers says, “Western media and think tanks aren’t producing
content every day about Xinjiang. Chinese state media outlets are.”
And it’s not just official state-run media. There’s an army of independent YouTubers in
China churning out propaganda, but they’re not officially linked with state-run media. They just
“happen” to be given support or access to cover certain topics. Like when they’re
invited to tour Xinjiang, and they just happen to discover there’s totally no genocide happening.
We did a full episode about these YouTubers, check it out. I’ll put the link below.
So YouTube and Google’s algorithms end up favoring Chinese state media that
churn out frequent content. Or people who push the Chinese state’s narrative.
No one else can keep up with this huge amount of content.
Of course, as I said, if search engines can de-amplifly Russian propaganda, they could
do the same for China. Or they could promote content like China Uncensored. But they don’t.
People are constantly telling me they aren’t getting notified of new episodes,
Or that they’re being secretly unsubscribed. It happens all the time.
Clearly things are stacked in the Chinese Communist Party’s favor.
Which is why I’m so grateful to the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army. That’s what I call
the fans of the show who contribute to us through the crowd funding website Patreon
or our exclusive community on Locals. As a thank you, I answer a question from them at
the end of each episode. Today’s question comes from David Michael White on Patreon.
“Hi China Uncensored, It’s been a long time since my last monetary support but I’m back at least for
now and I can’t wait for more content and the next google hangout…or is it Google meet. Is it free?”
David, it’s great to have you back in the 50 Cent Army. I know times are tough so I
get that it’s not always easy to support China Uncensored. The good thing about
Patreon is you can set a monthly limit, so you really could just throw us a dollar a month.
And believe me that’s way more than we would be getting per viewer on YouTube.
There are a bunch of different perks we give you on Patreon, depending on how much you contribute.
If you give $10 or more per episode, then you gain access to our monthly hangout,
where you and a small group of other fans get to video chat directly with me. I use Google
meet for that since it’s free and doesn’t have the shady connections to China that Zoom does.
We have a lot of fun on those chats. It’ll be good to have you back.
Thanks for your support David.
And thank you for watching. With Chinese Communist Party propaganda dominating the algorithms,
things really aren’t easy for us. That’s why I always say
leave a like and a comment for the algorithm, double check that you’re
subscribed in case YouTube unsubscribed you. And check back every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday and Saturday for new episodes because YouTube probably won’t notify you.
And if you can, consider supporting China Uncensored on Patreon.
That’s patreon.com/chinauncensored.
Again, a dollar an episode is the difference between China Uncensored staying on the air,
or disappearing forever. Once again I’m Chris Chappell, see you next time.