Committee claims YouTube must vet content

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 31 Jul 2008 at 08:35

YouTube must do more to screen its content before publication, and protect people from the internet's "dark side", according to MPs.

Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee claims sites, such as YouTube, which publish material from the public need to start vetting content far more closely.

Without proper checks, sites may unwittingly publish pornography, child abuse or other illegal content, the lawmakers say in a report.

YouTube told the committee that checking everything before publication was impractical because ten hours of material is added every minute. However, the legislators rejected that, saying some sites already vet all content.

"To plead that the volume of traffic prevents screening of content is clearly not correct," says the report. "Providers such as MySpace have not been deterred from reviewing material posted on their sites.

"Pro-active review of contents should be standard practice for sites hosting user-generated content."

The committee claims the need for change was highlighted by an alleged gang rape video that was posted on YouTube and viewed 600 times before being removed.

They dismissed YouTube's argument that sites should not have to check all content, just as telephone companies and email providers do not monitor all traffic.

Phone calls and emails are typically meant to remain private, whereas user-generated content is deliberately put into the public domain, the lawmakers argue.

Extra staff

Instead, the MPs want sites to hire extra staff to pre-check material and use better automatic filters.

Instead of new laws being drafted to clamp down on sites, the committee says the industry should adopt tighter self-regulation.

"The internet...is overwhelmingly a force for good," say committee chairman John Whittingdale. "However, there is a dark side and many parents are rightly anxious about the dangers to their children."

In a statement, Google claims YouTube reviews half of all material flagged by other users as inappropriate within 30 minutes and most of the rest within an hour.

"For YouTube we have strict rules on what's allowed, and a system that enables anyone who sees inappropriate content to report it to our 24/7 review team and have it dealt with promptly.

"We educate our community on the rules and include a direct link from every YouTube page to make this process as easy as possible for our users.

"Given the volume of content uploaded on our site, we think this is by far the most effective way to make sure that the tiny minority of videos that break the rules come down quickly."