The YouTube China censorship error has been resolved, mystery unsolved
In yesterday’s Dead Drop, we mentioned that YouTube was automatically deleting two terms that are critical of the Chinese Communist Party. The company told Gizmodo that the deletions were an “error.” They fixed it.
The reasons for the error remain unclear. YouTube directed Gizmodo to a blog post explaining that, in an effort to reduce onsite staff during the covid-19 epidemic, it has increasingly relied on machine learning; as a result, “users and creators may see increased video removals, including some videos that may not violate policies.”
That still doesn’t clear up the question of why, as the Verge pointed out, users had noticed the issue long before the pandemic, in October 2019.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who’s cast himself as Capitol Hill’s chief tech critic, wasted no time in pulling out the official letterhead.
