Google admits problems over ‘grooming’ with extreme content

A TOP Google executive has admitted users could end up in a “bubble of hate” because Youtube is recommending extreme videos to them, as MPS accuse social media firms of “grooming”.

A House of Commons committee said technology companies are making money out of abusive material because they are too slow to remove it and in some cases actively promote it to users.

Google, which owns Youtube, admitted it has not done a good enough job of removing far-right and extreme content from its video sharing platform during a meeting of the home affairs select committee yesterday.

A senior Twitter executive admitted the platform hadn’t, until recently, followed up reports of abuse unless they were made by the target. Sinead Mcsweeney, vice-president for public policy and communications in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, also said that Twitter does not routinely look for banned content from proscribed organisations, but focused on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and al-qaeda.

Yvette Cooper, chairman of the committee, said Twitter, Facebook and Google must do more to remove extreme content. Holding up a series of violent tweets, including threats against Theresa May and racist abuse of Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, Ms Cooper asked “what we have to do” to see them taken down. She added: “It’s very hard for us to believe that enough is being done when everybody else across the country raises concerns.”

Ms Mcsweeney admitted that “no figure I give you is going to sound like enough”. She added: “We’ve realised the world that we live in has changed and we have had to go on a journey with it ... it is no longer possible to stand up for all speech in the hopes that ultimately society will become a better place ... we do have to take steps, as we do now, to limit the visibility of hateful symbols.”

Ms Cooper told Nicklas Berild Lundblad, the Google boss: “Is it not simply that you are actively recommending racist material into people’s timelines? Your algorithms are doing the job of grooming and radicalising.”

Dr Lundblad said Google did not want people to “end up in a bubble of hate” and was using robots to identify extreme material and remove it, as well as banning comments and stopping such videos from being promoted.

Simon Milner, Facebook’s director of public policy, said: “We are very cautious about interfering in political speech. There are some politicians who actively want to take on the trolls and the abusers.”

‘It’s very hard for us to believe that enough is being done when everybody else across the country raises concerns’