YouTube Removes Videos Showing Atrocities in Syria
“Some have risked their lives, others have given their lives to document the atrocities and document human rights violations.”
If YouTube takes these videos down, Mr. Hiatt said, the platform risks losing “the
richest source of information about human rights violations in closed societies.”
Organizations that use such videos in their research regularly download copies and share them among themselves,
but journalists and smaller groups do not have the same technical resources and therefore rely on YouTube to host the videos.
“When the conflict in Syria started, independent media broke down and Syrians themselves have taken to YouTube to post news of the conflict,” said Chris Woods, the director of Airwars, a London-based organization
that tracks international airstrikes and their effect on civilians.
“There are probably 200 or so civil-society organizations working on Syria alone,” said Keith Hiatt, a vice president of Benetech, which provides tools for human rights investigations,
and a board member of the International Criminal Court’s technology advisory group.
While most still undergo a human review before being removed, a YouTube spokeswoman said the
technology might automatically remove videos and issue warnings to the content’s creators.
“Out of nowhere we received emails in quick succession
that said that individual archived videos had been deemed to breach terms and conditions,” Mr. Woods of Airwars said.