YouTube has no UK staff to filter videos

YOUTUBE has been ‘utterly hopeless’ at tackling extremist content because it employs no one in the UK to moderate vile videos, the head of the Commons home affairs committee has said.

MP Yvette Cooper said the Google-owned site’s handling of violent and extremist content ‘just isn’t good enough’.

The admission that no one is working in Britain to sift through reams of horrific content uploaded on to the site each day came after the home affairs select committee repeatedly pressed a Google executive during a meeting last month.

During the hearing, YouTube public policy manager William McCants was unable to say who was in charge of keeping the site safe, so Google gave the information in a letter. Most of its moderators are contract staff – with only 200 directly employed – and all are based abroad. Miss Cooper said: ‘This incredibly rich and powerful global company has a huge responsibility to stop its platforms being used for crime, extremism and damage to young people.’