YouTube India Says It Doesn't Censor Content, Users Flag Issues Themselves

Video-sharing website YouTube doesn't "censor" content but relies on consumers' flagging of issues and takes action based on its "strong community guidelines", an official clarified here on Tuesday.

"We have very strong community guidelines. The way it works is that we rely on users flagging off content that is inappropriate and when that happens, that is when we review it.

"We see where it is against our community guidelines and then we take the right kind of action. That's the chain," Satya Raghavan, Head, Entertainment Content at YouTube India, told reporters at a roundtable here when asked how it dealt with videos that could be possible security issues and whether there were any plans on restricting them.

Recently, a French video blogger claimed YouTube tried to censor her interview of European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker.

Asked about it, Raghavan explained: "We don't censor anything. What we do is we rely on the wisdom of the masses to flag-off things. We are a truly democratic platform."

Raghavan said the website doesn't demonetise videos that have controversial topics.

"No. What we have realised is there are some videos that we think are not fit for advertisers. So those videos we definitely turn off at times."

The website also takes into consideration requests from local governments, he said.

"There are a lot of places where the law of the land is important. And that's where we work with local governments where there are specific requests. Obviously we obey that," added Raghavan, who declined to comment on specific recent requests from the Indian government.