YouTube Removed 56 Lakh Videos Globally From Its Platform in Q3 2022

YouTube removed 5.6 million (56 lakh) videos from its platform in the month of July and September 2022 for violating their community guidelines.

The platform received roughly 2,71,000 removal appeals during the two months. Upon review, it reinstated about 29,000 appeals, said YouTube in its latest blog.

From July through September of this year, for every 10,000 views, between 10 and 11 were of content that violated the community guidelines, said YouTube in the blog jointly written by Matt Halprin, Vice President, Global Head of Trust and Safety and Jennifer Flannery O'Connor, Vice President, Product Management, YouTube.

YouTube also tracks the number of appeals submitted by creators in response to videos that are removed, as this helps gain a clearer understanding of the accuracy of its systems.

Community Guidelines are concerned with language and expression.

According to the blog, as the global video-sharing platform works to keep its policies evolving with the current landscape, the guiding focus is around one major goal — preventing egregious real-world harm.

According to the blog, preventing egregious real-world harm, however, doesn't mean that it would remove all offensive content from YouTube as it generally believes that "open debate and free expression" leads to better societal outcomes.

"But we're careful to draw the line around content that may cause egregious harm to our users or to the platform," the blog post said.

Youtube said it also works closely with NGOs, academics, and relevant experts from all sides and different countries to inform this policy review.

"We watch dozens or even hundreds of videos to understand the implications of drawing different policy lines. Drawing a policy line is never about a single video; it's about thinking through the impact on all videos, which would be removed and which could stay up under the new guideline. Following this comprehensive review, the team shares various options for policy lines, making sure to detail examples of videos that would be removed or approved for each (as well as different enforcement actions, like removal vs age restriction)," it added.