(PTI),

YOUTUBE is continuously monitoring the content on its platform to check misinformative and violative posts as there has been a rise in “interest” due to the election season, an official of the Google’s service said. The online video service from this month has started providing information panel in India around certain events, topics, publishers alongside search and videos to make users aware of context and videos they watch, he highlighted.

When asked about the trend of fake news or misinformative content on YouTube particularly after announcement of elections, YouTube News Partnerships Director Tim Katz said, “Right now, certainly, there is a rise in interest because of the election but we continue to monitor and take down content.”

“We are constantly trying to have a balancing act between freedom of expression, keeping that content up and again going back to our product principle of allowing our users to make decision on their own. We want to provide enough context and information for them to decide,” Katz told reporters here.

He mentioned that misinformation in general is a broad problem across the world. “However, when something does violate our guidelines or policies or things that are harmful, hoaxes etc we take that content off from our content entirely.” Google has committed USD 25 million to filter fake news on its platform. Under this commitment, Google and its subsidiaries are building partnerships with third parties to cross check information being uploaded on its platform. In India, YouTube has partnered with 10 entities to do fact check of information uploaded on its platform.