San Francisco (AFP)

After Twitter and Facebook, the YouTube video platform said Thursday it has also acted against a massive propaganda campaign by the Chinese authorities on social networks to discredit the mobilization for democratic reforms in Hong Kong.

YouTube turned off 210 channels after discovering they were "coordinating by uploading videos related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong," said Shane Huntley, security analyst at Google Group, who owns the video platform.

"We have uncovered the use of VPNs (virtual network to conceal the actual geographic origin of the Internet connection) and other methods to hide the origin of these accounts," said the expert. "This discovery is consistent with recent observations and actions by Facebook and Twitter regarding China."

Two other US technology giants, Twitter and Facebook, on Monday lodged similar charges against Beijing, saying they have suspended a thousand active accounts related to the disinformation campaign. Twitter said it also closed another 200,000 accounts before they were really active.

"These accounts deliberately and specifically sought to sow political discord in Hong Kong and in particular to undermine the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement on the ground," explained Twitter about suspended active accounts.

Facebook also said that some of the suspended accounts' publications compared the Hong Kong protesters to ISIS fighters, calling them "roaches" and blaming them for alleged killings with slingshots.

A semi-autonomous region in southern China, Hong Kong has been experiencing its worst political crisis since June since its return in 1997, with demonstrations and other actions almost daily to demand more freedoms.

- Robots, trolls and "false nose" -

The mobilization has often turned into clashes in recent weeks between radical activists and law enforcement. This resulted in more urgent threats of intervention by the Chinese central government, which described the movement as "terrorist".

Beijing, however, officially gave free rein to the local executive and its police to resolve the situation.

Behind the scenes, the central government is making great efforts to influence opinion, say Twitter, Facebook, and now Google.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry assured via a spokesman "not to be aware of the situation".

For its part, the center of geopolitical analysis Soufan Center indeed estimates that "Beijing leads on the Internet a misinformation campaign aimed at multiplying the support shown to the authorities of Hong Kong", a method inspired by Russia according to the NGO based At New York.

To do this, the Chinese government uses on social networks "robots, trolls and other accounts + false nose" to present the ongoing movements in Hong Kong as the fruit of "foreign interference", accuses the Soufan Center.

However, the organization believes that it is difficult to measure the real impact of this Chinese propaganda in Hong Kong, where the population has access to Twitter and Facebook, unlike mainland China where these networks are officially banned and blocked by censorship .

The Chinese social networks, tightly controlled by the authorities, have for their part extensively used the keyword "Down the masks", which was launched by the People's Daily, organ of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in power, notes the Soufan Center. This key word explicitly targets Hong Kong protesters who cover their faces, suggesting that this practice conceals criminal and terrorist activities.

"As events unfold, China's attitude is likely to become more aggressive, both in the real and virtual world," said the NGO.

It deplores the fact that social networks, which have largely contributed to the Arab Spring and the denunciation of human rights violations around the world, are now diverted by "autocratic governments".

© 2019 AFP