SCOTLAND YARD has only persuaded YouTube to delete just over 100 violent rap videos in three years.
Figures obtained by The Sun show that the Metropolitan Police’s special unit for investigating online gang feuds has asked for 139 clips to be taken down since 2016.
Reuters
The team – dubbed Operation Domain – stepped up its activity last year, demanding that the web giant remove 81 films glorifying gang stabbings and shootings in London, up from 20 in 2017.
But of these 139 requests, only 115 have been accepted with YouTube rejecting the other 24.
Many of the videos are of a type of rap music called “drill” that Met chief Cressida Dick has accused of “glamourising serious violence: murder, stabbings”.
Detective Superintendent Mike West said: “The Met has been monitoring the increase in the number of videos that incite violence since September 2015.
“Gangs try to outrival each other with content – what looks like a music video can actually contain explicit language used by gangs to threaten each other.
“They can include gestures of violence, with hand signals suggesting they are firing weapons and graphic descriptions of what they would do to each other.
“The speed at which an online disagreement can escalate into violence, often very serious violence, is staggering.
“Music role models and social media have a hugely powerful and positive impact, but when used in the wrong way the consequences can quite literally be deadly.”
The Met now has a database of 1,800 videos that they use to identify individuals suspected of involvement in gang violence.
