YouTube deletes 5m videos

SAN FRANCISCO: YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google, deleted about 5 million videos from its platform for content policy violations in last year’s fourth quarter before any viewers saw them, it said in a new report that highlighted its response to pressure to better police its online community.

YouTube has been criticised by governments that say it does not do enough to remove extremist content, and by advertisers, such as Procter & Gamble Co and Under Armour Inc that briefly boycotted the service when they unwittingly ran ads alongside videos the companies deemed inappropriate.

YouTube said in the report Monday that automating enforcement through software "is paying off" in quicker removals. The company said it did not have comparable data from prior quarters.

YouTube said it still needed an in-house team of humans to verify automated findings on an additional 1.6 million videos that were removed only after some users watched the clips. The automated system did not identify another 1.6 million videos that YouTube took down once they were reported to it by users, activist organizations and governments.