Seoul: Google shut down 449 South Korean YouTube channels in the second quarter of this year for their politically charged content, a report showed Sunday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the "Influence Operations Bulletin Q2 2006" by Google's Threat Analysis Group revealed that the U.S. company terminated 22 YouTube channels in Korean in April, 367 more in May, and another 60 in June. The largest share of these terminations occurred in May, coinciding with the period leading up to the June 3 local elections.

Per the report, the channels were removed for sharing content that was either critical or supportive of the South Korean government and for expressing support for or disapproval of specific South Korean political parties or figures. This marks a significant action by Google, as no South Korean YouTube channels had been terminated between the second quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. During that earlier period, Google had shut down 9,173 channels linked to China and 2,083 linked to Russia.