YouTube investigates automatic removal of comments critical of China's Communist Party

The video streaming platform, YouTube is reportedly investigating the automatic removal of comments critical of the Chinese Communist Party amid complaints of censorship. While speaking to an international media outlet, the company said that the filtering appeared to be ‘an error’ amid a greater reliance on automated systems during the deadly pandemic because its human reviewers have been sent home. 

The inquiry by YouTube comes after a technology entrepreneur Plamer Luckey complained that comments about the Communist party had been removed. Luckey, who is the founder of the virtual reality group Oculus, reportedly said that YouTube deleted every comment he ever made about the Wumao, an internet propaganda division of CCP. He even suggested that the filtering appeared to be a new policy of censorship. 

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Soon after he pointed out the ‘error’, several internet users too believed that the video streaming platform removed several comments about the party. Luckey’s complaints further even attracted the attention of Republican Senator Ted Cruz. While taking to Twitter, Cruz called that matter ‘very disturbing’ and even ask why Google or YouTube censoring Americans of behalf if the CPC. 

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YouTube made no policy changes 

In his tweet, Cruz also appeared to be referring to the unsubstantiated comments from the White House that large tech firms are biased against conservatives and should be hit for antitrust violations. Meanwhile, YouTube in a reported statement said that it had made no policy changes and that its filters were designed to remove only ‘spammy hateful or harassing comments’. A YouTube spokesperson, while speaking to the media outlet, said that the glitch appears to be an error in our enforcement systems. 

The spokesperson reportedly said that the company is investigating. He further even suggested that the users can report suspected issues to troubleshoot errors and help officials make product improvements. Back in March, the video streaming platform even reportedly said that the site is expected to see more content removal as a result of it reliance on machine learning instead of human moderators. 

(Image: Unsplash) 

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