Youtube ‘hopeless’ in tackling extremism

Google’s handling of violent and extremist content on its sites “just isn’t good enough”, a powerful Commons committee has said.

MPS branded Youtube, the video-sharing platform the company owns, as “utterly hopeless” over its failings to tackle farright posts.

They hit out at the “frankly astonishing” low levels of staff employed directly to deal with moderating content and criticised the company for not having anyone in the team based in the UK.

Labour’s Yvette Cooper, who chairs the committee, said: “Google’s response just isn’t good enough.

“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. Yet in most cases it doesn’t even employ its own staff to work on tackling illegal or abusive content, it contracts the problem out to others instead.

“And it also turns out that none of those specialist reviewers are based in the UK at all.”

Youtube employs 200 staff directly to review content.