Google promises to take stricter action against ‘incendiary’ YouTube videosvideo

Google has announced a number of measures to tackle the online distribution of terrorist and extremist material. The company promises, among other things, to make ‘incendiary religious and nationalistic’ YouTube videos less findable.

The search giant wrote in the announcement that “more is needed to remove material that is not in line with the policy.” There are four measures in total, the first of which involves making more resources available to analyze videos using machine learning. In this way, the company wants to determine whether it is a video with extremist or terrorist content. In addition, Google promises to use more human flaggers to identify those kinds of videos.

To achieve that, Google is announcing partnerships with approximately 50 NGOs to complement the 63 organizations that already play the role of trusted flaggers. The stricter policy against incendiary videos consists of making the material less discoverable, for example by showing a warning and disabling monetization options, recommendations and comments. Finally, Google wants to target ads against potential IS supporters and thus change their minds.

The measures coincide with Facebook’s pledge last week to step up action against extremist content. The promises follow a call from the G7 countries late last month. In it, they asked for more measures from tech companies against online extremism. The European Commission has also called on companies to take action in the past. At the beginning of this month, it appeared that the organizations are sticking to the agreements made better.