SAN FRANCISCO: As the US presidential election inches closer, Google said it has terminated more than 3,000 fake YouTube channels in the July-September period which were part of a large spam network linked to China that attempted to run an influence operation on YouTube.

As a result, this large China-operated network hasn’t been able to build an audience, IANS reported.

“Most of the videos we identify have fewer than 10 views, and most of these views appear to come from related spam accounts rather than actual users,” Google said in a statement late on Friday.

“While this network posted frequently, the majority of this content was spam. We haven’t seen it effectively reach an actual audience on YouTube,” said Shane Huntley, Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG).

This YouTube network has a presence across multiple platforms and acts by primarily acquiring or hijacking existing accounts and posting spammy content in Mandarin such as videos of animals, music, food, plants, sports, and games.

(With inputs from agencies)