That’s five times more removals than the firm’s last quarter. YouTube attributed the jump to its new hate speech policy, which was implemented in early June and requires removing extremist and conspiracy videos instead of first issuing warnings. (The Logic)

Talking point: This is YouTube’s first report since introducing the new policy. Though it shows that removals have gone up, it provides less clarity on whether the amount of hate speech on the platform is actually decreasing. That’s partially because of the amount of content on the platform—over 500 hours of content are uploaded every minute, a significant volume of video to get through. Though the company uses machine learning technology to detect certain violations, like adult content, it said hate speech is more context-dependent and needs “human review to make nuanced decisions.” And, YouTube also said the increase in removals is partly from deleting older content that was previously allowed. That means until all of that is completely taken down, the policy’s effectiveness in removing newer hate speech can’t be clearly assessed. The removals come after several months of controversy for the Google-owned company over how it handles hate speech on its platform. It appears to still be facing issues—on Thursday, BuzzFeed reported that YouTube had taken down then reinstated the channels of two well-known European far-right figures, saying it was a “mistake” to remove them.