Google has intensified its plans to remove YouTube videos of terrorists. The search engine giants have intensified their steps over the past few months as they look to ensure that the videos do not preach hate or violence. The statement was made by YouTube on Monday, as they look to comply with government requests across the globe.
The new policies are designed to ensure that individuals or groups termed as terrorists, with their videos not to be displayed on YouTube. The individuals and groups termed as terrorists are decided by the .S. or British governments.
A spokesperson for YouTube who commented anonymously confirmed the implementation of the policies. When the policy would be implemented is still unknown at this point. According to the terms of YouTube, terrorist individuals and groups have been barred from using the services, this new policy will now see their videos removed from the platform.
YouTube is home to hundreds of terrorist videos, with that of slain al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki encouraging Muslim faithful to take up arms and advocated violence against supreme nations like the U.S. videos like this were part of those removed from the platform by Google, according to the spokesperson.
YouTube has been under intense pressure from governments and other human rights organizations across the globe for years, encouraging the platform to harden their stance against terrorists and their videos on the video sharing platform. They stated that the propaganda spread by the terrorist affects radical viewers, leading to deadly attacks in some regions across the globe.
The Home Secretary of the UK intensified the pleasure on Google when he paid a visit to tech companies in Silicon Valley back in July. He further mentioned this during his speech in Washington DC last week. The lawmakers in EU countries and that U.S have also threatened to sanction tech companies if they don’t take immediate action on the issue.
In Germany, a tougher stance has already been adopted, with the law in the country now fining social media companies sum worth 50 million euros is the platforms don’t take action to remove hate speeches in their platforms immediately.
YouTube stated that their latest policies were reached after the company had consulted with experts in the field. It is still a surprise why the platform had to wait for this long before taking action.
