Google’s gang crime disgrace
Web giant refuses to take down half of videos that make thousands for violent gangsters
GOOGLE was accused of putting lives at stake yesterday as it emerged that it has refused more than half of police requests to remove gang videos inciting knife and gun crime in London.
The internet giant’s YouTube service has taken down only 38 per cent of videos reported to it by the Metropolitan Police.
It means that not only do videos glorifying violence remain online but the gangsters posting them are able to earn an estimated £5,000 a month from advertisements on the site, from which Google also benefits.
Since Scotland Yard launched a unit to tackle gang violence online in 2015, officers have compiled a database of 876 ‘inflammatory’ videos that ‘raise the risk of violence’.
Of those, only 39 of the worst videos, where gang members openly threaten others, were flagged to YouTube for removal.
But Google has refused to comply in 62 per cent of the cases, taking down only 15 videos since the initiative began.
Yesterday London Mayor Sadiq Khan tore into YouTube for ‘ glamorising gang culture’, citing four videos in which gangsters wearing balaclavas, scarves and masks brag about how they would murder rivals.
In one video, thugs are seen waving a Rambo-style knife as they attempt to goad rivals, making gun signs to a soundtrack of violent rap music.
The four videos, which have been viewed more than 356,000 times, are estimated to have generated hundreds of pounds for London gangs via advertising that runs alongside them.
The Met reported the clips to Google in December but it has failed to take them down. Last night, the Mail found adverts for brands such as Lynx deodorant, watchmaker Christopher Ward and even an event for the BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee running alongside the videos.
Those who publish videos on YouTube get a cut of the money from any advertising on their posts. And Google makes most of its £72.6billion-a-year revenue from adverts, which it places automatically with computer technology. Most companies are unaware their adverts run alongside such material.
Mr Khan said yesterday: ‘These videos are a shocking example of the glamorisation of gang culture. Internet giants have policies around violent content but they do not go far enough.
‘It is vital that they toughen up their guidelines, remove breaches immediately and work with partners to help ensure such horrific videos do not reappear. Lives could depend on it.’
Police believe such videos are partly responsible for soaring gun and knife crime.
Det Supt Mike West, head of the Met’s Operation Domain tackling violent online content, said: ‘Gangs are making £4,000 to £5,000 a month from videos [which] incite violence and provoke other gangs in a bid to make themselves look powerful – it’s a show of strength.’
Yesterday after pressure from Mr Khan, YouTube agreed to remove a clip featuring a Rambostyle knife. The three other videos highlighted by the mayor were not deemed to violate the site’s policies, although YouTube said they would no longer receive advertising revenue.
A spokesman added: ‘We prohibit videos that are abusive or promote violence. We work closely with organisations like the Metropolitan Police to understand local context, and specifically, so we can understand where artistic expression escalates into real threats.’
‘Lives could depend on it’
BREAKING a long, embarrassed silence, Jeremy Corbyn finally shares his thoughts on the horrors unfolding in socialist Venezuela – the country he has held up as a model for Britain to emulate.
So does he condemn hard-Left President Maduro, disciple and heir of his hero Hugo Chavez, for the scores of demonstrators this tyrant’s henchmen have killed and the thousands they’ve arrested since he rigged last month’s election to seize unlimited power?
Does the Labour leader denounce the regime that has reduced one of South America’s most prosperous nations to abject poverty, with inflation at 700 per cent, child malnourishment pandemic, hospitals out of medical supplies and the economy shrinking at 18 per cent a year?
Fat chance! In typically weasel words, like those he uses to exculpate his terrorist friends in Ireland and the Middle East, Mr Corbyn regrets all violence ‘by any side’.
As for the poverty inflicted by Chavez and Maduro, he dismisses this as a mere technical slip-up, arising from a failure to diversify Venezuela’s economy away from oil (and never mind that socialism has killed off the non-oil economy too).
With total disregard for reality, Mr Corbyn even praises the regime for its ‘effective and serious attempts’ at reducing poverty and inequality and improving the life chances of the poorest.
Try telling that to families queuing for rice and milk and desperate parents handing starving children to the state.
And this is a man acclaimed by his naive followers for integrity and respect for the truth? What a narrow escape Britain had in the June election!
On Chavez’s death in 2013, Mr Corbyn said: ‘He showed us a different and better way of doing things. It’s called socialism.’
The next time this country goes to the polls, every voter should remember those words – and be warned.