YouTube Removed Over 1.9 Million Videos In India For Violating Community Guidelines

YouTube removed over 1.9 million videos between January and March 2023 in India, for violating YouTube Community’s guidelines. According to a report released by the streaming platform, India peaked the list, with the highest removals among countries. While 6,54,968 videos were removed in the US, 4,91,933 in Russia and 4,49,759 in Brazil. YouTube, globally, removed over 6.48 million videos, over 8.7 million channels and more than 853 million comments in Q1 2023 for violating community guidelines. 

The Community Guidelines Enforcement report provides global data on the flags received by the platform and how it enforces policies. "Since the earliest days as a company, our Community Guidelines have protected the YouTube community from harmful content. We enforce our policies using a combination of machine learning and human reviewers,” Youtube said in a statement. 

YouTube has, over the years, invested heavily in the policies and products needed to protect the community, it added. 

However, the vast majority of creators today, upload content in good faith, without violating policies. "We believe educational efforts are successful at reducing the number of creators who unintentionally violate our policies” it added. 

As per the Community Guidelines Enforcement report on video removals, more than 93 per cent of these videos were first identified by machines rather than humans. 

"Of the videos detected by machines, 38 per cent were removed before they received a single view, and 31 per cent received between 1 and 10 views before removal," it said.

The platform implied that more than 69 per cent of the violative videos detected by machines received less than ten views before they got taken off YouTube."The overwhelming majority of these channels were terminated for violating our spam policies, including but not restricted to scams, misleading metadata or thumbnails, video and comments spam," it said.

YouTube said starting today, creators can exercise the option of taking an educational training course on receiving a Community Guidelines warning.