[koheripbal]

> How hard would be for Chinese intelligence to recruit YouTube moderators

I think it's much simpler than that. There are also just millions upon millions of very nationalistic Chinese citizens (living globally) that would happily abuse the mod button.

There are Google employees... in China... that know exactly how the company works and how to game the system. Maybe they need to be "pressured" by the Chinese gov't - but I wonder if that's even necessary.

Social media is rife with people who will advocate for their country for free and without being asked to.

[yorwba]

> abuse the mod button

If someone insults them in the comments and they report it, are they even abusing the system or are they using the reporting mechanism as intended?

[throwaway_pdp09]

I guess they're using it as intended there. But if they're using it because they don't like factual anti-china criticism, that's abuse.

[shadowgovt]

It depends. YouTube's comment section doesn't have a particular editorial purpose, the closest thing it has to a mission is letting people comment on each other's videos for some vague sense of "community."

That's not an objective fact-oriented mission, and a moderation system that allows users to flag and kill comments that make them feel bad is still satisfying the constraints of the design.

[mcqueenjordan]

I'm sympathetic to this line of thinking, even though I don't necessarily like the direction the rhetoric leads. Google offices in America also employ a great number (and proportion) of Chinese nationals.