In recent days, news surrounding the deletion of certain comments critical of China’s Communist Party (CCP) on YouTube has been the source of online discussion and conspiracies after users discovered such comments were being automatically deleted on the video hosting platform.

On Tuesday morning, The Verge, The Hill and several other news outlets published articles discussing the issue, which ignited speculation as to why the Google website appears to be systematically policing two key phrases that are considered insults to the CCP.

When posted in the comment section of videos, the Chinese phrases “共匪” and “五毛” are automatically removed from YouTube within roughly 15 seconds. The latter phrase, also known as “wu mao” or the “50-cents army,” is a form of derogatory slang that refers to certain internet users who are paid by the CCP to shift online conversations away from anything considered critical of the government and to downvote or attempt to bury such criticisms. The first term, which means “communist bandit,” originated from the Nationalist Government in 1927 and acts as a form of insult directed at the CCP. The English translations of these terms are left untouched.

According to a YouTube spokesperson who addressed the issue in The Verge’s article, the removal of these comments “… appears to be an error in our enforcement systems and we are investigating.”

Although recently in the media, YouTube users discovered the comment moderation as early as October 2019, which can be seen in a YouTube Help thread from user Scott Clary. In their post, Clary asked, “Is youtube censoring comments that include "五毛"? while adding that such comments appear to “magically disappear.” In the thread below, several others confirmed his statements, noting their comments were also removed. Two additional threads from November 10th and 19th posed similar questions on these support pages, and all three have since been locked.

On May 13th, weeks ahead of the recent coverage, Twitter user jenniferatntd uploaded a video showcasing the removal of these comments on YouTube, which was later shared to Reddit’s world politics subreddit on May 15th, further driving discussion about the deletion. Users in this Reddit post then also confirmed such comments were removed, while some speculated that the platform was policing these comments in order to appease China’s government (though YouTube remains banned in the country).

#YouTube "automatically" deletes a comment in Chinese, "Gongfei", which means "communist bandit", in 15 seconds.
This person tested 3 times, same result. #油管 15秒內自動刪除「共匪」留言，網友連試三次皆如此。
他們找了個比李飛飛更厲害的AI專家？ pic.twitter.com/MLCeko0SIY

— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferatntd) May 13, 2020

Lachlan Markay, a reporter at The Daily Beast, speculated on Twitter that “… the most plausible explanation is that Chinese operatives worked furiously to mass-report these terms and hence get them automatically flagged by content filters.”

Lotta scoffing at "accidentally" here, but the most plausible explanation is that Chinese operatives worked furiously to mass-report these terms and hence get them automatically flagged by content filters https://t.co/6Kknf7oZgE

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) May 26, 2020

No official cause for these deletions has been publicly announced by YouTube, but some speculate that they’re being deleted merely as a result of being added to the platform’s comment filters that remove spam and offensive content without human oversight. During the current coronavirus pandemic, YouTube also stated in March that they were relying on these automated filters more heavily due to changes attempting to protect its workforce.