BellingcatIn Pooja Chaudhuri‘s first piece of research for Bellingcat, we explore how music videos generated on YouTube are encouraging the expulsion of Muslims from India https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/16/youtube-is-autogenerating-videos-for-songs-advocating-the-expulsion-of-muslims-from-india/?utm_source=mastodon
YouTube uses the term “Auto-generated”. They are published on the platform through a label or a music distribution company which delivers media files and metadata for the recordings to YouTube. YouTube then creates a video containing the song.
Bellingcat identified 114 videos across 54 channels, seven of which were unavailable at the time of publication, generated for songs that promote discrimination — and in some cases outright violence — against Muslims in India, posted from May 2019 to September 2023.
One video for a song titled “Banayenge Mandir”, which translates to “We will build a temple”, gathered over 70,000 views. Last month, a mob of Hindu men climbed atop a mosque’s walls in the state of Karnataka, dancing to the song and singing the lyrics.
In another YouTube-generated video, the words “Leave India if you are scared of saffron” are sung. The Hindu right-wing has appropriated the colour saffron, which is often prevalent in demonstrations against Muslims. The video has more than 780,000 views.
Bellingcat found 49 YouTube-generated videos with clear hateful or violent messages in the title – “You must chant Jai Shri Ram if you want to live in India”; “We will chase and shoot you if you don’t chant Jai Shri Ram”; “Eradicate love jihad” are some examples.
Of the 114 videos we found, 42 were provided to YouTube by the company Sangam Dhun. It is owned by Dharmendra Shukla, the national president of a Hindu nationalist organisation that supported the BJP ahead of state elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2022.
Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern, told us that YouTube invests more resources into moderating content in English-speaking markets, partly because it is easier, and partly because these markets tend to be more profitable.
We found multiple examples of songs that were removed because of hate speech by their own music labels but had found their way back online through YouTube-generated videos.
Varun Bahar’s “Jo Na Bole Jai Shri Ram Bhej Do Usko Kabristan” (Those who don’t hail Lord Ram, send them to the graveyard) reappeared as a YouTube-generated video. The song was taken down after Bahar and others were charged with promoting racial hatred through the song’s lyrics.
YouTube told us they have "strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and don't allow ads to run on our platforms that include or promote hateful content,”
“We take this issue seriously and terminate channels and remove videos that violate our policies.”
“We take this issue seriously and terminate channels and remove videos that violate our policies.”
Read the full research on the YouTube-generated videos here: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/16/youtube-is-autogenerating-videos-for-songs-advocating-the-expulsion-of-muslims-from-india/?utm_source=mastodon
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