Coordinated AI Influence Campaign Floods YouTube with Pro-China Narratives

A report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has revealed a coordinated inauthentic influence campaign on YouTube, named “Shadow Play,” involving at least 30 channels promoting pro-China and anti-U.S. narratives. The campaign, believed to have started in mid-2022, utilizes artificial intelligence-generated entities and voice-overs to align with the Chinese Communist Party’s narratives.

The videos aim to shift English-speaking audiences’ views of China, accumulating nearly 120 million views and 730,000 subscribers. YouTube has taken down at least 19 channels for coordinated inauthentic behavior and spam. The report calls for greater information sharing among nations and tighter rules on disclosing the use of generative AI in online content.