Google has taken significant action in its ongoing effort to combat state-sponsored disinformation, removing more than 34,000 YouTube channels and associated accounts linked to coordinated propaganda campaigns in the first half of 2025. The tech giant detailed these actions in its latest quarterly bulletin released in July.
Between April and June 2025 alone, Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) took down 10,994 YouTube channels, with a majority tied to China and Russia.
The report shows that:
Over 7,700 channels were part of a Chinese influence campaign. These accounts primarily published content in Mandarin and English, often promoting the Chinese government, praising President Xi Jinping, and commenting on global events such as U.S. foreign policy from a pro-China perspective.
More than 2,000 channels were linked to Russian campaigns. These accounts posted videos in multiple languages supporting the Kremlin’s stance on the war in Ukraine, attacking NATO, and spreading anti-Western sentiment.
Google also revealed that in May 2025, it disrupted a network associated with RT (Russia Today)—a Russian state-owned media outlet previously banned in March 2022. The takedown included 20 YouTube channels, four Google Ads accounts, and one Blogger site connected to the RT network.
In addition to operations from China and Russia, Google said it dismantled smaller influence campaigns originating from Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Romania, and Ghana. Many of these were focused on domestic political rivalries, regional conflicts, or attempts to manipulate international perceptions around issues like the Israel-Palestine crisis.
This second-quarter action follows an even broader sweep in the first quarter of 2025, when Google removed over 23,000 channels involved in similar disinformation efforts. The combined total of over 34,000 propaganda-linked channels and accounts marks one of the company’s most aggressive responses to global disinformation to date.
Google emphasized its continued investment in threat detection, stating that its teams are working tirelessly to identify, investigate, and eliminate coordinated influence operations that threaten platform integrity.
