YouTube removed more videos in India in Q1 2022 than anywhere else in the world

Google-owned YouTube removed more videos in India in the first three months of 2022 than any other country in the world. In its global community guidelines enforcement report, the company said that it had removed over 1.1 million videos in India, with the United States (US) being a distant second with 358,134 videos removed.

Interestingly, the global community report doesn’t actually reflect the total number of videos YouTube removed in India during the period. The community guidelines only show videos that were taken down by YouTube’s own moderators, trusted flaggers, automated algorithms and other mechanisms that fall under its Community Guidelines.

In India, however, the company also has Grievance Redressal officers, who take removal requests from users in India. According to the company’s enforcement reports published in accordance with the country’s IT Rules, 2021, YouTube removed 1,433,947 videos in India during the period, 258,088 more than those reflected in the global report.

To be sure, the numbers presented in the India reports include content removed by human moderators, grievance redressal officers and also YouTube’s automated algorithms, among others.

Further, the company said that it had terminated 4.4 million channels globally during the quarter ended March 2022. A channel is removed if it violates the company’s guidelines three times in a 90-day period. This, in turn, leads to the removal of videos posted by that channel as well, which added up to an additional 99,390,911 videos during the period.

Posting spam and misleading content was the leading reason for channels being removed, accounting for 90.5% of all channel removals. On the other hand, child safety and violent content accounted for most video removals at 24.9% and 21.2%, respectively. Another 16.9% videos were removed because they contained nudity.