A senior Google executive was left struggling to explain why YouTube, which it owns, had not taken down a video despite admitting that it was “antisemitic, deeply offensive and shocking”.
The video, titled “Jews admit organising White genocide”, was posted by David Duke, a former high ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan and one of America’s most notorious antisemites.
Peter Barron, vice-president of communications and public affairs for Google Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee that he was “not going to defend the content of the video”, which he described as “abhorrent”.
He also said that “the question is – and it’s an important question related to the wider issue of freedom of expression – is that content illegal and does it break our guidelines?
“And the policy and legal experts arrived at the conclusion that no, it didn’t.”
The video, which can still be found on YouTube, includes lines such as: “No group on Earth fights harder for its interests than do the Jews. By dividing a society they can weaken and control it”, and: “the Kosher Hollywood media that teaches Europeans to hate themselves so much that they celebrate their own extinction.”
Mr Barron said he accepted that “these [comments] are… right on the borderline.
“There are many videos related to David Duke which are over the line and are removed.
“But I would just emphasise that our teams are making highly principled decisions and debating with a lot of intensity these issues. We’re not looking at these questions lightly.”
Yvette Cooper MP, the head of the committee, pointed out that YouTube’s guidelines recommended that “it is not acceptable to post malicious comments about a group of people solely based on their race”.
She invited Mr Barron to reflect on the fact that this video “didn’t just violate YouTube’s community standards, but also the standards of common decency.
“I think most people would be appalled by that video and that it goes against all standards of common decency in the United Kingdom”, she said.
The Home affairs committee was hearing testimony from representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter about hate speech published on each of those platforms.
