The most popular video-sharing website YouTube has reported that it does not censor any of its content, but it totally depends on the users to raise issues and flag the content themselves and the company would take appropriate action accordingly based on its strong community guidelines.
This news was reported by a YouTube India official at a conference in Kolkata, India on Tuesday.
Official Reports from the Head of YouTube India
Satya Raghavan, the Head of Entertainment Content, YouTube India, was questioned by reporters at a roundtable conference in Kolkata, India on how the company was planning to deal with videos and content that could possibly breach and threaten the security policies of the website and if there are any plans on restricting such issues. The Head official of YouTube India then replied that the company has very strong community guidelines. The company relies on the users to flag off content which they might feel is inappropriate and the company reviews it when is such a thing happens and takes action. This is the process chain followed by the company.
Recently, a French video blogger had uploaded a video of her interview with Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission Head. The blogger had claimed that YouTube had tried to censor her interview video. In response to this incident, the head of Entertainment, YouTube India had repeated and explained that the company does not censor any content and it depends on the wisdom of the masses to flag the issues. He said that the company is a truly democratic platform. He also mentioned that the website does not demonetize the videos which have controversial content and topics.
The YouTube India official said that the company has realized that there are a few videos which they think might not be suitable for the advertisers. So such videos at times will be certainly turned off. The YouTube staff review all the flagged videos around the clock every week as per the company’s guidelines. However, flagging the videos does not mean that videos will be removed automatically. Only if the video violates the company’s rules it will be removed, else no amount of flagging will remove the video from the site. The company said that it follows all the community guidelines and the videos that violate it are removed. The company also has said that the videos that are not suitable for the younger audiences are all age-restricted.
He also reported that the website does take consideration requests from the local governments. He added that there are many places in the world where it is important to follow the law of the land. This is where the local governments come into action with their specific requests and obviously the company obliges and obeys them. This is followed by YouTube on the global canvas. However, the official refused to comment when asked about the recent specific requests that were made by the Indian government.