Content that violates our policies against violent extremism includes material produced by government-listed foreign terrorist organisations. We do not permit terrorist organisations to use YouTube for any purpose, including recruitment. YouTube also strictly prohibits content that promotes terrorism, such as content that glorifies terrorist acts or incites violence. We make allowances for content shared in an educational, documentary, scientific or artistic context.

Content produced by violent extremist groups that are not government-listed foreign terrorist organisations is often covered by our policies against posting hateful or violent or graphic content, including content that's primarily intended to be shocking, sensational or gratuitous. Reviewers evaluate flagged content against all of our Community Guidelines and policies. We limit the numbers in this section to the content that is removed under our violent extremism policy.

Hash sharing: violent extremism

YouTube utilises technology to prevent re-uploads of known violative content before that content is available to the public. For a long time, we have used this technology to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse imagery on the platform. In 2016, we created a hash-sharing database with industry partners where we share hashes (or 'digital fingerprints') of terrorist content to stop its spread. The shared database currently contains more than 400,000 unique hashes that are near-identical to the human eye.

YouTube's vast media library and automated detection systems make us a large contributor of hashes to the hash-sharing database. In accordance with the sharing criteria established by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, YouTube contributed over 45,000 unique hashes to the hash-sharing database in 2023.

Once content has been hashed, other platforms can use those hashes to help detect related content on their platforms and assess it against their own content policies. Since 2017, the number of companies contributing to and benefitting from this database has grown from 4 to 13. This organised effort is now formally operated by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT).

Global Internet forum to counter terrorism: violent extremism

In 2017, YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter founded the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) as a group of companies, dedicated to disrupting terrorist abuse of members’ digital platforms. Although our companies have been sharing best practices around counter-terrorism for several years, GIFCT provided a more formal structure to accelerate and strengthen this work and present a united front against the online dissemination of terrorist content. In collaboration with the Tech Against Terrorism initiative, GIFCT hosts global workshops, engaging tech companies, non-governmental organisations and international government bodies.

With varied members and industry partners using the hash-sharing database, there needed to be a baseline consensus for what would constitute terrorist and extremist content for the purposes of reviewing and sharing hashes of content. As noted in GIFCT's 2021 Annual Transparency Report, ‘the original scope of the hash-sharing database is limited to content related to organisations on the United Nations Security Council's Consolidated Sanctions List’.

YouTube and GIFCT's other founding members signed on to the Christchurch Call to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online. Building on the Christchurch Call, GIFCT developed a new Content Incident Protocol (CIP) for GIFCT member companies to respond efficiently to perpetrator-created, live-streamed content after a real-world, violent event. This protocol has been tested and proven effective, for example, following the attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany (October 2019); a shooting in Glendale, Arizona, US (May 2020); a shooting in Buffalo, New York, US (June 2022); and a shooting in Memphis, Tennessee, US (September 2022). Since creating the CIP, GIFCT has further developed its Incident Response Framework to include a Content Incident tier to respond to non-live-streamed, perpetrator-produced video and images depicting the real-world event. This was activated for the first time following an attack in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India (July 2022).

GIFCT has evolved to be a standalone organisation with an independent Executive Director and staff. GIFCT's structure also includes an Independent Advisory Committee composed of government representatives and non-governmental members, including advocacy groups, human rights specialists, researchers and technical experts. Within the new governance framework of the institution, YouTube holds a position on GIFCT's Executive Operating Board.

Educational, documentary, scientific and artistic content: violent extremism

If users are posting content related to terrorism for an educational, documentary, scientific or artistic purpose, we encourage them to be mindful to provide enough information so that viewers understand the context. It’s not OK to post violent or gory content that’s primarily intended to be shocking, sensational or gratuitous. If a video is particularly graphic or disturbing, it should be balanced with additional context and information to help viewers understand what they are seeing, such as through an introduction, voice-over commentary or text overlays, as well as through a clear title and description. Providing documentary or educational context can help the viewer, and our reviewers, understand why potentially disturbing content sometimes remains live on YouTube. For instance, a citizen journalist who captures footage of protesters being beaten and uploads it with relevant information (date, location, context, etc.) would likely be allowed. However, posting the same footage without contextual or educational information may be considered gratuitous and may be removed from the site. Graphic or controversial footage may be subject to age-restrictions or a warning screen.

Priority Flaggers: Violent Extremism

Across our policy areas, we continue to invest in the network of over 300 government partners and NGOs who bring valuable expertise to our enforcement systems, including through our Priority Flagger programme. Participants in the Priority Flagger programme receive training in enforcing YouTube’s community guidelines, and because their flags have a higher action rate than the average user, we prioritise them for review. Participants of the Priority Flagger program have a direct line of communication with our Trust & Safety teams for quicker issue resolutions. Content flagged by Priority Flaggers is subject to the same policies as content flagged by any other user and is reviewed by our teams who are trained to make decisions on whether content violates our community guidelines and should be removed.