Dozens of beheading videos and a great many more propaganda videos have all come to light in one popular place on the internet: YouTube, Google’s video-sharing website. So Google’s got a problem—a big one, legally and in terms of its public image. And it has finally admitted it’s no longer something it can tackle alone.
Verity Harding, Google’s Public Policy Manager, spoke at a European parliamentary meeting Jan. 28 on counter-terrorism action planning, to lend some insight into the complexities of barring terrorist video publication. Simply put, YouTube is flooded with new content every minute of every day—300 hours of new content every minute, to be exact. Sifting through each piece of material to remove inappropriate content would be impossible, she said, and pre-screening before uploads isn’t an option either. Harding said that “to pre-screen those videos before they are uploaded would be like screening a phone call before it’s made.”
So Google can’t keep out terror-related content because it can’t keep up with the sheer amount of content period.
But it can do a better job at hastening identification and removal if it has the massive support of its users, she said. By flagging “bad” content more generally, but also keeping an eye out for terrorist videos more specifically, Harding said users can make YouTube a safer, cleaner place. Once a video has been flagged, YouTube staff review and take action accordingly, possibly deleting the content and banning the user who uploaded it.
Echoing Harding’s suggestion, the counter-terror chief for the European Union moved one step further to propose that each member nation designate a team of trained professionals to tackle the task: “We have to help them, and refer to them, and signal content. Each member state should have a unit with people trained to do that.” According to Gilles de Kerchove, only one-third of offending content flagged by ordinary users is taken down, while content flagged by law enforcement is removed more consistently.
Harding did not address whether Google is at risk of losing revenue or “clicks” over the offensive videos on its site, but any image problem can certainly heighten the concerns of both investors and users. By getting in front of the issue and moving to share responsibility for the problem, Google took steps to defend itself from criticism, as well as the possibility that YouTube might become known as the “go-to place” for terror propaganda.
