Explained: Why 5.8 million YouTube videos have been removed in three months

Flagged content remains live when it doesn’t violate the company’s community guidelines. Of the over 5.8 million removed videos, automated flagging systems accounted for the bulk, at 5.3 million. Users removed 3 lakh videos themselves. The remaining 2 lakh-plus were removed after flags from “trusted flaggers” (2 lakh videos), NGOs (12,000) and government agencies (36).

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Reasons for removal of YouTube videos 

Of the videos removed, 52% were considered spam or misleading. Others were removed for reasons such as child safety issues (16%), nudity or sexual content (14% percent) and violent or graphic content (10%).

Other removals 

During the period, YouTube removed over 2 million channels, 89% of them for spam and misleading content.

Over 540 million comments, too, were removed. Spam and misleading comments accounted for 59%, followed by hateful and abusive comments (25%).