YouTube Denies Presence of Child Sexual Abuse Content on Its Platform Amid Government Warning

On Monday, YouTube stated that despite conducting numerous investigations, it had not found any content on its platform that was related to child sexual abuse, and that regulators had not provided any proof of such content.

A YouTube spokeswoman made the statement in response to warnings the Indian government earlier this month sent to social media companies, including YouTube, X (previously Twitter), and Telegram, requesting that they remove content that involved child sexual assault from their services.

A representative for YouTube said in a statement: "We have a long history of effectively combating child exploitation on YouTube. We conducted numerous in-depth investigations but were unable to find any evidence of CSAM on our platform, nor did regulators provide us with any examples or proof of CSAM on YouTube." "No form of content that endangers minors is allowed on YouTube, and we will continue to heavily invest in the teams and technologies that detect, remove, and deter the spread of this content," the Google-owned video platform added. In an email statement, the YouTube representative said, "We are committed to working with all collaborators in the industry-wide fight to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM)."

YouTube has officially responded to the matter.

For violating its child safety guideline, YouTube terminated over 94,000 channels and over 2.5 million videos in the second quarter of 2023.

YouTube claims that when certain CSAM-related search terms are entered into specified search results in India, a warning is displayed at the top. This alert links to the national cybercrime reporting portal and declares that images of child sexual abuse are prohibited.

On October 6, the authorities announced that social media sites X (previously Twitter), YouTube, and Telegram had received orders to take down any content that depicted child sexual abuse from their Indian platforms.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Electronics and IT, had threatened to revoke social media intermediaries' safe harbor status under section 79 of the IT Act if they did not take immediate action. This means that even though the platforms may not have uploaded the content, they may still be held directly liable under the relevant laws and regulations.

"Social media intermediaries X, YouTube, and Telegram have received letters from the Ministry of Electronics and IT advising them to take down Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) from their platforms on the Indian internet.

The ministry had noted in a statement on October 6 that "the notices served to these platforms emphasise the importance of prompt and permanent removal or disabling of access to any CSAM on their platforms."

In order to stop CSAM from spreading in the future, the warnings also demanded the adoption of preventative measures including content filtering algorithms and reporting systems.