Board of Deputies tell Google of ‘grave concern’ on hate videos

Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush has spoken of his concern at antisemitic content hosted by Google on YouTube.

Jonathan said: “We spoke to a senior member of the Google UK team to signal our grave concern at the hateful content hosted on YouTube. We had a constructive conversation about possible solutions and that dialogue will be ongoing over the coming days and weeks. Ultimately, we will judge Google by its actions. It must do everything possible to ensure that it is a great platform and not a hate platform.”

Previously Board of Deputies vice President Marie van de Zyl commented on some of the many hate videos which were easy to locate on the platform.

She said:: “These shocking and vile videos are packed with antisemitic tropes. They accuse Jews of murdering Christian children to use their blood in matzah – the classic blood libel; they accuse Jews of promoting paedophilia; they accuse Jews owning the world’s governments and media and they accuse Jews of being parasites. To say the videos promote racial hatred would be a massive understatement. In its recent report, the Community Security Trust noted that 22% of antisemitic incidents in 2016 took place on social media. Therefore, more needs to be done by social media companies themselves to monitor and take action against online hate. YouTube would be acting irresponsibly if it knowingly allowed such material to appear on its platform. They must be taken down immediately and YouTube must do everything in its power to remove any others with similar content.”