August 1, 2008 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Internet companies must police the 'dark side' of the web, a report in the online version of the UK’s Guardian newspaper suggested yesterday. UK lawmakers have suggested the Internet industry is responsible for protecting the young from a range of offensive content.
The committee, Members of the British Parliament, went further, recommending the creation of a self-regulatory body to manage protecting children from unsuitable Internet content. The committee also suggested that allowing individual companies to manage such safeguards was an "unsatisfactory piecemeal approach which lacks consistency and transparency".
The committee commended Microsoft and MySpace for their efforts in the area, but criticized YouTube for not managing unsuitable content well enough, noting the appearance of what appeared to be a gang attack on a female on the site. The video was viewed 600 times before YouTube’s flagging process eventually led to the video being removed.
"We had a lively debate with YouTube,” suggested John Whittingdale, the committee Chairman. "They understandably say they can't look at all the material uploaded."
"We don't want this sort of content on our site and our system is very efficient at removing it,” the Guardian reported a YouTube spokesperson as saying. “Currently we review around half all flagged material within half an hour, and the majority within an hour. We make sure that if a video is removed copies cannot be reuploaded to the site."
The report also recommended social network settings should require a conscious decision by users to make the content they add to the Internet visible to all. The committee also highlighted the growth in suicide websites, and recommended they should be blocked in the same way the Internet Watch Foundation blocks child sex websites.
