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A 2022 study found that at least one Chinese state-backed news outlet appeared among the top 10 Google News or Bing News results for “Xinjiang” on 106 of 120 study days—88% of the time. That figure describes how often an outlet appeared in sampled top results, not the share of all results that were propaganda, and it does not establish today’s search rankings.
What the 88% figure measures
The Brookings Institution and the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy tracked 12 search terms related to Xinjiang and COVID-19 every day from November 1, 2021, through February 28, 2022. They examined the first page or top 10 results across Google Search, Google News, Bing Search, Bing News, and YouTube, classifying results by whether they came from known Chinese state-backed media.
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For the neutral query “Xinjiang,” the study recorded at least one Chinese state-backed outlet in the top 10 Google News or Bing News results on 106 of the 120 days. This is an incidence rate across days: it does not mean that 88% of all Google and Bing news results were state media, that the figure applied separately to each service, or that every result on those days was propaganda.
The study reported a different measure for YouTube: Chinese state media appeared among the top 10 results for “Xinjiang” on 118 of 120 days, or 98%. That, too, is a frequency of appearances in sampled top results, not a percentage of all videos on the platform.
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How the results differed by search type
Across all queried topics, the study measured the share of observed top results or channels attributed to Chinese state-backed media. Those percentages are not directly interchangeable with the 88% figure, which counts how often at least one outlet appeared on a given day for one query.
| Search type | Study result across queried topics | What the measure represents |
|---|---|---|
| Google News and Bing News | 21.5% of observed top results | Share of top news results identified as Chinese state-backed media. |
| YouTube | About 25% of observed top channels | Approximate share of top channels identified as state-backed. |
| Google Search and Bing Search (web) | About 6.5% of observed top results | Approximate share of web-search results identified as state media. |
The results indicate that state-backed sources were more prominent in the sampled news and YouTube searches than in ordinary web searches. They do not support treating the 88% news-search incidence and the 6.5% web-search share as competing estimates of the same thing: one records whether an outlet appeared at least once on a day for “Xinjiang,” while the other is a share of observed results across the study’s queried topics.
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What other queries revealed
Xinjiang and COVID-19 terms
Terms related to Xinjiang produced more state-backed results than COVID-19 terms in the study. Its authors associated part of that difference with stronger platform policies intended to promote authoritative information about COVID-19; the study does not establish that this was the sole cause.
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Across the study’s top-10 YouTube observations for “Fort Detrick,” a Maryland military research site that Chinese propaganda linked to COVID-19 origins, researchers counted 619 Chinese state-media videos—about five per day over the 120-day period. This is a count of videos found in the sampled top-10 observations, not a count of unique videos available on YouTube.
“Unit 731” in news searches
“Unit 731,” a biological and chemical weapons research unit in Japanese-occupied China during World War II, appeared on the first page of news-search results every day of the data collection. Together, these examples show how repeated content and ranking can make a state narrative visible to someone using an investigative or seemingly neutral query.
What the study does—and does not—show
The study documents exposure and prominence in a defined sample of search results. It does not independently establish whether each returned item was true or false, and it does not prove that Google, Microsoft, or YouTube intentionally promoted Chinese propaganda. The researchers describe an amplification problem involving ranking systems, the volume of state-funded material, and weak or inconsistent labeling of source affiliation.
Broader context comes from Freedom House, which has described Chinese authorities directing online outlets to amplify state-media content, promoting officially approved values through algorithms, and extending manipulation campaigns to international platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. That context helps explain why a large volume of state-aligned material may matter, but it is not a measurement of the search results in this particular study.
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Why source labels and transparency matter
Brookings co-author Jessica Brandt told CyberScoop: “Users who are coming to search for neutral information can easily stumble upon propaganda. One useful intervention here could be just better labeling of state news sources in search results.”
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Brookings also discussed labels, warnings, ranking changes, and greater transparency as possible responses. Statements from Google and Microsoft reported at the time emphasized combating coordinated influence while preserving access to information and reviewing ways to improve. These are proposed or discussed interventions, not evidence that a particular change was implemented or that it would eliminate the problem.
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