Every minute, people from across the globe upload hundreds of hours worth of video material to YouTube which, even for a company as skilled at handling massive amounts of data as Google, is incredibly difficult to manage. The company’s employees simply can’t crack down on extremist propaganda and similar videos at a reasonable speed.
Roughly 300 hours’ worth of video material is uploaded to YouTube every single minute—leaving employees at the video-sharing website struggling to crack down on the publishing of extremist propaganda and hostage videos. Speaking at a European Parliament meeting regarding a counter-terrorism action plan, Google Public Policy manager Verity Harding likened the challenge of pre-screening videos to “screening a phone call before it’s made.” Currently YouTube allows users to highlight videos they deem offensive, at which point they are reviewed by staff. However, only one-third of problematic material is taken down—leading some to believe that the censorship is too lax.
