Thursday, May 28, 2020
YouTube Deletes Comments Critical of China’s Communist Party
YouTube has been deleting comments critical of China’s ruling party due to a software flaw, the company said on Tuesday in response to criticism of the practice.
Users of the online video giant, a division of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, flagged that certain comments posted below videos critical of the Chinese Communist Party were quickly deleted.
“This appears to be an error in our enforcement systems and we are investigating,” a YouTube spokesperson said in an email.
The spokesperson said the issue was not the result of a policy change. Some comments posted in Chinese language, such as “communist bandit” and “50-cent party,” a derogatory term for the ruling party, were deleted within seconds. YouTube’s automatic filters eliminate comments that violate company policies. The Verge reported the issue earlier Tuesday.
YouTube pulls comments that violate its Community Guidelines, such as spammy, hateful or harassing posts. Human moderators, who are often contractors, help with this. But during the Covid-19 lockdown, these workers have not been coming to the office, leaving YouTube relying more on automated systems to filter out the dross. The company warned in March there would be less content moderation and slower customer support.
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1 comment:
Once again a software error. Wonder who wrote their software? Happens so often you have to wonder about the whole system.
More likely they are deleting stuff so as to not offend the Chinese out of fear China will cut off their access. That would effect their profits. The dollar is obviously more important to them.
Set the way back machine to 1930’s and 1940’s and you can imagine them doing the same thing for the Nazis.
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