‘I don’t know who I can trust,’ says Quebec YouTuber harassed by Chinese government

Yao Zhang says she doesn’t have any friends, yet every week, thousands of her 175,000 YouTube subscribers tune in to her channel to listen to her live takes on Chinese current affairs.

“China isn’t a democratic country. Everyone suffers in that regime,” Zhang told Radio-Canada during an interview held somewhere between Montreal and Quebec City.

Concerned for her safety, the 39-year-old guards any information that could give away her location.

And for good reason: the Quebec YouTuber, who refuses to be silenced, has been the target of an intimidation campaign by the Chinese government for over a year.

“I have to be very, very careful,” she said. “I stopped all communications with the Chinese community because I don’t know who I can trust.”

Trained in accounting at McGill University, Zhang did a 180 during the pandemic and began offering news commentary on YouTube, which she continues to do today. The Communist Party of China and president Xi Jinping are often the subjects of her criticisms.

“I’m with Taiwan, I’m with the Uyghurs, I’m with Hong Kong. I’m against the Chinese government,” said the pro-democracy activist. 

It was in September 2024 that Zhang first noticed sexually explicit AI-generated images of herself circulating online.

“It wasn’t just one photo. There were many, many of them,” she remembered with disgust. 

Shared by anonymous accounts, the images were published on social media under posts of official accounts belonging to the Canadian government and then prime minister Justin Trudeau.

For the YouTuber, there was no doubt the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was behind what she was seeing. And she was right. 

In March, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) released a statement blaming the PRC for a new "spamouflage" campaign using sexually explicit AI-generated images to target individuals in Canada. Zhang says the government told her she is the first documented case of the campaign.

“This new campaign employs various tactics to intimidate, belittle and harass individuals based in Canada who are critical of the PRC,” reads the statement.

Notably, Zhang and members of her family have been doxed. Her date of birth, phone and passport numbers all appear on a doxing website that labels her as a “traitor.” The site, which is still accessible to this day, also uses degrading language to spread defamatory sexually explicit statements about her.