| Title | YouTube "Error" Leads to Censorship of Chinese-Language Phrases Critical of the CCP | |
| Date | Wednesday May 27 2020, @03:57AM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the oops!-(we-got-caught) dept. | ||
YouTube is deleting comments with two phrases that insult China's Communist Party
YouTube is automatically deleting comments that contain certain Chinese-language phrases related to criticism of the country's ruling Communist Party (CCP). The company confirmed to The Verge this was happening in error and that it was looking into the issue.
"This appears to be an error in our enforcement systems and we are investigating," said a YouTube spokesperson. The company did not elaborate on how or why this error came to be, but said it was not the result of any change in its moderation policy.
[...] Comments left under videos or in live streams that contain the words "共匪" ("communist bandit") or "五毛" ("50-cent party") are automatically deleted in around 15 seconds, though their English language translations and Romanized Pinyin equivalents are not.
[...] The accidental censorship is even more puzzling considering that YouTube is currently blocked in China, giving its parent company, Google, even less reason to censor comments critical of the CCP or apply moderation systems in accordance with Chinese censorship laws.
The automatic deletion of these phrases was highlighted on Tuesday by US technologist and former Oculus founder Palmer Luckey on Twitter. But earlier reports of the issue date back to the middle of May when they were spotted by human rights activist Jennifer Zeng. As mentioned above, though, The Verge also found complaints on YouTube's official help pages dated to October 2019.
Shadows of Project Dragonfly.
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printed from SoylentNews, YouTube "Error" Leads to Censorship of Chinese-Language Phrases Critical of the CCP on 2024-04-25 20:49:35