US Edition
YouTube has been accused of allowing anti-Semitic content - including videos calling Jews “pigs” - by a former moderator turned whistleblower.
Khaled Hassan, 31, was a moderator for the online video platform and was employed until two months ago to identify extremism in Arabic language videos. However, he has quit his role and spoken out to accuse YouTube’s policy of removing extreme content of being a “sham” and accused the company of “shirking its legal and moral responsibilities”.
Mr Hassan alleges that:
- YouTube ignored warnings that specific videos would incite violence against Jews, just weeks before Malik Faisal Akram, the British terrorist, watched the same clips and took four hostages at Beth Israel synagogue in Texas.
- YouTube ignored requests to remove videos by Wagdy Ghoneim, an Egyptian jihadist who is banned in the UK, on the grounds that he was not on an internal watchlist of just 29 names.
- He was also told that when he wished to “flag” any video about the Middle East conflict, he should seek approval from a Palestinian colleague.
- The whistleblower was moved to a more menial job because, he claimed, he highlighted videos that YouTube did not want to remove.
Among the YouTube videos that triggered Mr Hassan’s concerns are dozens in which late Pakistani preacher, Israr Ahmad, spouts anti-Semitism, with titles such as “New World Order, Jew World Order”. The videos call Jews “this cursed race”, “the ultimate source of evil” and “the biggest agents of Satan”. One video, recorded in Urdu, says Jews “are akin to pigs”. Others quote the notorious forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Responding to the claims, which were reported in this week’s edition of the Jewish Chronicle (JC), Nadine Dorries, the Culture and Media Secretary, condemned YouTube’s failure to combat hate speech, and pledged that her Online Safety Bill would compel it to in future.
“If platforms like YouTube fail to act, Ofcom will have robust powers to take enforcement action against them,” she said.
‘Shirking their legal and moral responsibilities’
Mr Hassan, a counter-terrorism expert who spent years fighting extremism in Egypt before taking a master’s degree in security policy at Leicester University, described YouTube’s policy as “a sham”.
“They claim they will remove content that glorifies terrorism and contains racist hate speech, but what they do behind the veil of company secrecy is very different.
“They are shirking their legal and moral responsibilities. They tell users that their platform is safe. In fact, they are allowing people to be radicalised and reinforcing claims that Jews are evil and rule the world.”
After months of resisting calls to remove harmful content, late on Wednesday, YouTube told the JC it had taken down Ghoneim’s main channel, although other videos by him, which have been watched by thousands, were still on the platform as the paper went to press. The firm said it had taken down a further 10 videos and was reviewing others.
The social media company did not respond to request for comment. But a spokesperson told the JC: “Content promoting violence or hatred against the Jewish community is not allowed on YouTube. Each quarter, we remove tens of thousands of videos violating our hate speech policies.
“Upon review, we’ve terminated one channel and removed 10 videos for violating our community guidelines. Our review is ongoing, and we’re committed to taking appropriate action to ensure YouTube is not a place for those who seek to do harm.”