YouTube took down more than 2.25 million videos in India during the last quarter of 2023 for breaching its community guidelines, as per a report by PTI on Tuesday. India led the global tally for video removals, surpassing the United States and Russia. Singapore ranked second with 1,243,871 takedowns, while the US followed with 788,354 deletions.
Global Ranking of Video Removals
Indonesia secured the fourth position with 770,157 video takedowns, and Russia stood fifth with 516,629 deletions, according to YouTube’s Community Guidelines Enforcement report, which furnishes worldwide data on flagged videos and policy enforcement.
Why YouTube Deleted Over 9 Million Videos?
Globally, over 9 million videos were removed by YouTube during this period for violations. Machines flagged more than 96 percent of these videos before human intervention. The deletions were made due to various breaches such as harmful content, child safety concerns, violence, nudity, sexual content, and misinformation.
Between October and December 2023, YouTube removed over 2.25 million videos in India for guideline violations, placing the country at the top of the removal list among 30 nations.
Global Channel Removals
On a global scale, YouTube eliminated 20.5 million channels for guideline violations during the same quarter. When a channel gets terminated, all its videos are taken down. In this quarter, over 95.5 million videos were removed due to channel-level terminations.
YouTube clarified that a channel faces termination if it accumulates three community guidelines strikes within 90 days, engages in severe abuse, or is solely dedicated to violating guidelines (like spam accounts). The platform, owned by Google, affirmed its commitment to ensuring a secure and lively community.