YouTube Takes Down European Parliament Video On Stopping Torture For 'Violating Community Guidelines'

Found on Techdirt on Thursday, 06 October 2016
Browse Censorship

The latest victim? Would you believe it's the European Parliament itself? Marietje Schaake, a really wonderful Member of the European Parliament (and a Techdirt reader), tweeted that the video she had posted of a European Parliament debate on "anti-torture" was taken down for "violating community guidelines." Really.

And while it's likely that with enough attention, YouTube will magically reverse its ridiculous position on this video, not everyone is able to get that kind of attention. It makes you wonder what other content is getting blocked because some algorithm, or some clueless individual, can't be bothered to understand what's happening.

It also makes you wonder how much scanning occurs. Not only for music that might violate some copyright, but in this case there seems to be speech-recognition involved too.