CCP trolls persuaded YouTube that the Chinese President is “bullied and harassed” by humorous songs about him, which were taken down.
by Chen Tao
“Bitter Winter” reported on March 5, 2022 on the CCP’s abuse of copyright complaints that led to YouTube suspending two very influential Rubao channels Recently, “Bitter Winter” has learned that the CCP is expanding its crackdown to include other Rubao YouTube channels that came after Xiaofanqi and Xiaochitang but are rapidly growing in influence. The CCP has begun to use an even more outlandish excuse than the earlier copyright complaints—denouncing to YouTube that the creators of the Rubao videos are “harassing and bullying Xi Jinping.”
On September 10 this year, Rubao YouTuber “GFWfrog”（墙国蛙蛤蛤） released a Rubao song called “Xi’s Fragile Heart,” based on Malaysian singer Namewee’s “Fragile”, which mocked Xi and received tens of thousands of hits. However, the video was taken down by YouTube on September 17 for “violating harassment and bullying policies.” The author was asked to refrain from uploading new works for seven days and warned that if he received two more similar warnings within 90 days, the channel would be shut down permanently.
This has caused an uproar among Chinese dissident circles outside the Great Firewall, and as GFWfrog told Radio Free Asia at the time, “It’s ironic and absurd that ‘Xi’s Fragile Heart’ has been taken down by YouTube for ‘violating the harassment and bullying policy.’ It sounds very ironic and absurd that the head of the CCP, General Secretary Xi Jinping, who harasses and bullies 1.4 billion Chinese people every day, can be harassed and bullied by a little YouTuber like me. YouTube’s Harassment and Bullying Policy explains that ‘debates related to high-ranking officials or leaders’ are exceptions to the rule of impunity.’” GFWfrog believed that the video was reported by a CCP cyber-mercenary, which triggered Youtuber’s manual review mechanism, and questioned the infiltration of YouTube’s Chinese-language review team by the CCP.
Unfortunately, GFWfrog is not the only one who has been suppressed by YouTube for such ridiculous reasons, as another YouTube allegedly abusive channel called “Voice of Chonglang”（冲浪之音) was suddenly suspended permanently by YouTube on October 5 this year as the harshest punishment. The owner did not even understand which one of his videos had been found to be “harassing” Xi Jinping.
The operator of “Voice of Chonglang” told “Bitter Winter”: “This YouTube ban was very sudden, as I was notified by email that my account had committed serious or repeated violations of policies related to harassing content and cyberbullying, resulting in the permanent banning of the channel. However, generally YouTube’s offending content is notified during the video review stage, or multiple warnings are given after the fact, in fact more than three times before the banning takes place. My account has not received any warnings and being banned straight away baffles me.”
The operator of “Voice of Chonglang” was even more furious that his appeal email was dismissed in less than five minutes. It seems that YouTube did not even look at his appeal seriously. Although YouTube officials did not specify which parts of his videos were in violation of the law, the operator of “Voice of Chonglang” believes that the channel’s mockery of Xi Jinping had hit a “red line.”
“A while back another video creator, GFWfrog, had his video taken down for bullying Xi Jinping, so I guess my channel offended this leader, plus the fact that my channel was involved in some netizens sending Rubao comments in a live online game, which was reported by the media and triggered the attention of the authorities, so my channel was treated in this way. It is regrettable that despite YouTube’s policy guidelines clearly stating that debates involving well-known officials or leaders are exceptions that will not affect accounts, the CCP is able to ignore this rule by using unlimited reports from online water armies,” the operator of “Voice of Chonglang” said.
Ironically, while “Havana,” a spoof of former U.S. President Donald Trump, has received more than 100 million views on YouTube, and there are plenty of spoofs of Biden and Trump on the Chinese website Bilibili, a spoof of Xi Jinping has been suppressed by YouTube, which labeled it as “copyright infringement” and “bullying Xi Jinping.” Perhaps Xi Jinping himself is a leader with a “fragile heart,” as the song by GFWfrog goes.
