85% of all YouTube Channels Removed in Q1 Flagged Over Malicious or Fraudulent Content

YouTube removed nearly 2 million channels in the first quarter of 2020, 85% of which were terminated due to the promotion of scams, misinformation, and, in some cases, for spreading malware.

A popular pastime for 2 billion unique monthly users, it comes as no surprise why fraudsters would use the platform to spread scams and malware.

With the help of its automated flagging systems, NGOs, government agencies and the YouTube community, the platform removed 1,975,135 million channels encompassing more than more than 51 million videos, according to the latest report.

Although 49.9% of removed videos had no viewers, 22.7% had more than 10 views per video.

“YouTube strives to prevent content that breaks our rules from being widely viewed—or viewed at all—before it’s removed,” the report said. “Automated flagging enables us to act more quickly and accurately to enforce our policies.”

The US seems to be the leader in number of videos removed, boasting over 1 million videos flagged and terminated for violating platform guidelines. Brazil ranked second, with more than 800,000, and India ranked third, with more than 400,000 removed.

“YouTube”s Community Guidelines are enforced consistently across the globe, regardless of where the content is uploaded,” YouTube added. “When content is removed for violating our guidelines, it is removed globally.”

Additionally, the report highlights that nearly 700 million comments were removed between January and March 2020, 99.6% of which were detected by YouTube”s automated flagging systems. 67.9% of the flagged comments were deleted for spamming, spreading fake information or scams, and 24.3% were flagged due to child safety reasons.