YouTube is deleting comments with two phrases that insult China’s Communist Party

YouTube is automatically deleting comments that contain certain Chinese-language phrases related to criticism of the country's ruling Communist Party (CCP). The company confirmed to The Verge this was happening in error and that it was looking into the issue.

This appears to be an error in our enforcement systems and we are investigating," said a YouTube spokesperson. The company did not elaborate on how or why this error came to be, but said it was not the result of any change in its moderation policy.

But if the deletions are the result of a simple mistake, then it's one that's gone unnoticed for six months. The Verge found evidence that comments were being deleted as early as October 2019, when the issue was raised on YouTube's official help pages and multiple users confirmed that they had experienced the same problem.

Sure, an error in our enforcement systems" that was reported six months ago. I just don't believe very specific things like this - and the trigger words are very specific and require contextual knowledge - are implemented by error.