Erm . . .

$ perl <<'EOT'
heredoc> my $string = "hi there world! La  la  12 12  14  :  19  :  hi
+";
heredoc> 
heredoc> $string =~ s/\s{2}//g;
heredoc> print $string, "\n";
heredoc> EOT
hi there world! Lala12 1214:19:hi
[download]

Looks like it's removed any occurrence of exactly 2 space characters to me.