I’ve yet to see an adult or explicit video on YouTube, even though tens of thousands of hours of content are uploaded every day.
Granted, I’m not diligently looking for this stuff, but the point is that filtering is effective. And when it comes to mainline search results, Google’s SafeSearch seems impeccable – and totally safe for kids.
So, why are results totally unsafe for artists and content owners? And why are labels forced to play by the DMCA, and get vilified when they remove content or refuse to license? “We play the wack-a-mole problem just as much as the content industry does, and it frustrates us,” Google attorney Kent Walker told members of Congress last month. “We are in the best position to rapidly remove content… the content industry is in the best position to let us know what’s authorized and what’s not. The music industry is a very complicated place.”
But is this really so complicted? Or, could Google clean up illegal music results overnight?