The Chinese government is funding British YouTube stars to produce pro-China propaganda videos, an investigation by The Times can reveal.
Sitting on a bench in a lush green park speaking to the camera in a Midlands accent, the only hint that the man in his 50s is in China are the characters on a small logo on his black hoodie.
However, the words being spoken in the YouTube video by Lee Barrett, praising the camps in Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims are held in effect as slaves, could have been lifted straight out of the Communist Party propaganda notebook.
Regarding the inhabitants of these camps, where according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Uighur Muslims are locked up because of their religion, he claims “when these young people come out of these camps, they see they have some sort of future for them, jobs, training, so they can do new kinds of jobs”.
The comments written by viewers below the video are unfailingly positive, including insights such as “we need these re-education camps in Hong Kong for those brain-washed young rioters”.
Lee’s son, Oli, 23, who previously had a successful following as a YouTuber making videos of him playing the computer game Call of Duty, addresses the Hong Kong protests himself in another video, called “Western media brainwashing”.
Oli, who moved to China in 2019 to live with his father, tells viewers that the “western media” is wrong to say Hong Kong protesters are “pro-democracy”.
He adds: “Police brutality is another thing pushed in the media of the Five Eye nations — that the Hong Kong police during the protests over the last year have been so brutal against their citizens . . . which is just blatantly not true.”
Amnesty International said in September that it had evidence of detained Hong Kong protesters being severely beaten in custody and suffering “other ill-treatment amounting to torture”.
The videos are one of several that push a pro-China government agenda and has led to the Barretts scoring a runaway success since they launched their channel in 2019.
Titles include “Western media lies about China” and “Camera surveillance is great in China” and several are in support of the technology company Huawei.
According to analysis by the computational propaganda project at the University of Oxford, their videos have been tweeted by members of China’s Communist Party across the world including the Minister for the Chinese Embassy in the UK, Ma Hui.
The Times has found that some of their videos were funded by Chinese Radio International, a media organisation that has been exposed as the secret owner of an international network of propaganda radio stations.
Grammarly, a writing app, has pledged to remove their adverts from the videos and JD Sports promised to investigate after The Times revealed its adverts were being shown.
The Barretts started producing videos about China and as their videos became more nationalistic, the number of subscribers increased exponentially.
Critics have claimed that pro-China YouTubers are benefiting from ad-revenues in part driven by an alleged Chinese Communist Party network of bots that promote videos supporting the state.
The Barretts have nearly 200,000 subscribers, and have produced 255 videos since the start of last year, gaining a combined 16.5 million views. Their videos are thought to earn them about £53,000 a year through advertising alone, according to analysis by Social Blade, a website that monitors social media channels such as YouTube.
In November they visited the Shaanxi district of China with several other foreign YouTubers who live in China and make videos supporting the government.
The trip was organised and funded by the Chinese Radio International and an official press release described the visit as “International Internet Celebrities Witnessing the Happiness of Shaanxi People”.
In a candid video about the visit that was subsequently removed, Lee admitted that a trip to a mountain was cancelled so they could witness “propaganda” regarding the area’s prosperity.
He said: “It wasn’t until the second day they started talking about cutting the trip short by a day, and there was no real reason given for that.” A fellow YouTuber Jayoe Nation said: “They had to fit in more propaganda.”
Lee replied: “They didn’t say that, did they, but that’s what happened.”
Various videos from the trip show the YouTubers visiting locations in the district including a farm where Oli performed a farcical dance while holding vegetables.
The Barretts are part of a growing number of foreigners who live in China making videos endorsing the government and criticising the West.
Jason Lightfoot, who went to university in Sheffield where he met his Chinese wife, has a channel, Living in China, with 35,000 subscribers.
His videos include titles such as “The World can’t compete with China’s Infrastructure!”, “The World is Hiding China’s Success”, “The Chinese Government is Doing a Great Job” and “The World Needs to Learn from China”.
In one, he walks around filming BMW cars and says: “This is one of the poorest provinces in China. China has become a beautiful utopia of this world. I’m astonished by it. Am I lying?
“Is this not a utopia? Is this not the way the world should be? People say ‘communism is bad’ Well maybe it’s not that bad. Take a look at China for example. Is it that bad? This is communism.”
Despite the praise of China, such YouTubers are not technically allowed to be posting such videos. YouTube, along with Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter, is banned in China. The Barretts and Mr Lightfoot rely on a virtual private network to bypass the Chinese firewall by routing traffic through a server in another country.
Gray Sergeant, research fellow at the Asian studies centre at the Henry Jackson Society, said: “This co-opting of influencers is something new and is quite clearly attempting to legitimise the regime.
“It’s probably quite wise to get in with YouTube because although it can’t be easily viewed in China without a virtual private network, it’s a way for them to get their message out to the West.
“If they were to step out of line and say something controversial then life would become very difficult for them. They clearly know that so it’s difficult to know whether you can trust anything they are saying.”
Hannah Bailey, who specialises in China’s use of state-sponsored digital disinformation, at the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “This strategy of using Westerners to project a positive image of the Chinese Communist Party is one that has been used by Chinese officials for quite some time.”
She added that such videos were not only aimed at improving its image to an international audience, but to influence thinking among Chinese citizens too.
“China is continuously aware of its need to maintain legitimacy among its domestic population. Part of this legitimacy stems from its perception among international audiences. In other words, if domestic audiences believe that the rest of the world admires China, this instils confidence by domestic audiences in Chinese Communist Party rule.”
The Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Chinese Research Group, told The Times: “Vloggers shilling for tyrants is a new version of an old idea. Dictators have always used useful idiots to whitewash their crimes and sadly the current rulers in Beijing are following the same playbook.”
The Barretts, Mr Lightfoot, Chinese Radio International and the Chinese Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
