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The chief executive believes “bad actors” have used the video-sharing website to harass, manipulate, and harm other users.
Wojcicki made the promise in response to British Prime Minister Theresa May’s efforts to weed out radical content from social media platforms, which is believed to have spurred a string of terrorist attacks this year in the United Kingdom.
Last month, in a speech to the United Nations, the British prime minister noted that tech companies have made “significant progress” when it comes to online censorship of terrorist content. However, more needs to be done in the process, and tech giants should act faster, May argued.
Computer Algorithms to Censor Extremist Content
According to Wojcicki, YouTube is testing a “computer-learning” tech that can accurately detect radical content posted on the website. According to the company, hundreds of minutes of footage is posted on the video streaming website every minute.
The tech can detect other types of inappropriate content like clips of kids being sexually exploited for personal gains as the website is trying to address its huge child exploitation problem.
Following a Buzzfeed report in late November, YouTube instructed an army of moderators to spot and take down any videos and channels showing children in compromising or disturbing situations to the sexual predators’ delight.
Many of the clips of kids dressed in revealing clothing or being abused are posted by users from Eastern Europe and have accrued millions of views. Video creators get revenue from the disturbing content via online ads.
In some instances, YouTube banned the ads featuring on videos bordering child exploitation while in other instances, it has taken down the content completely.
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