YouTube starts labelling government-backed videos in Hong Kong
The feature has been rolled out amid concerns over a Chinese disinformation campaign surrounding protests in the territory.
Tuesday 27 August 2019 11:32, UK
YouTube has begun labelling videos on its Hong Kong site to display whether the channel behind them receives government or public funding.
The Google-owned platform has been providing such context in a number of other countries, including the US and UK, since last year, but has rolled out the feature in Hong Kong amid concerns among several tech giants over a Chinese disinformation campaign surrounding ongoing protests in the territory.
More than 200 YouTube channels that appeared to be engaging in a coordinated influence operation were disabled last week, just days after Twitter and Facebook moved to block similar efforts.
Twitter announced it had removed 936 accounts that were "behaving in a co-ordinated manner to amplify messages related to the Hong Kong protests", with Facebook removing five accounts, seven pages and three groups it said were engaged in "a number of deceptive tactics".
YouTube confirmed to Sky News that the information panel it has been using in other countries would work in the same way in Hong Kong to explain how the publisher is funded, with a link to its Wikipedia page.
On its support page, the company states: "This information panel providing publisher context is meant to give you additional information to help you better understand the sources of news content that you watch on YouTube.
"It is not a comment by YouTube on the publisher's or video's editorial direction, or on a government's editorial influence."
Among the channels that fall under the policy are China Central Television (CCTV), Xinhua and China Global Television Network (CGTN), which are all news stations funded by the communist-run government.
However, Chinese newspapers like the People's Daily, Global Times and China Daily are not currently included.
Chinese media outlets have a presence on YouTube even though the platform is banned in China itself, as are western social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
But they are available in Hong Kong, where users have hit out at the firms for showing adverts from state-controlled media such as CCTV that criticised demonstrators.
Twitter has since said it will no longer accept advertising from state-controlled news outlets, but Facebook and YouTube said they did not have any plans to modify their policies on adverts.
Huge protests have been staged in the former British territory in recent months over proposed legislation that would allow authorities to detain and extradite people wanted in countries Hong Kong did not already have agreement with, including mainland China.
Although the controversial bill has since been suspended, a refusal to completely withdraw it has seen the protests continue and escalate.