Justin Bieber’s purposeful path to cultural rehabilitation has hit a bump in the road. A video from the pop superstar has become the most complained about clip on YouTube, according to a senior Google exec.
It turns out it really is too late to say sorry for Biebs, as the undisclosed video has been flagged as inappropriate more than any other clip on the service.
According to senior Google policy advisor Anthony House, users aren’t necessarily reporting the clip as “inappropriate” in keeping with YouTube’s guidelines on flagging content that contains “nudity, sex, violence or intimidation.” After all, Bieber has kept a squeaky clean image — barring a few prior mishaps.
“Our most flagged video ever is a Justin Bieber video, just because people dislike it,” House told a U.K. parliamentary committee, reports The Telegraph.
As it happens, the comments were made in order to illustrate the platform’s workings during a hearing on terrorist and extremist content online. House also told the committee of a new initiative that will involve Google re-directing people who seek extremist content via its search engines to anti-radicalization websites.
YouTube’s flagging process sees the service constantly review videos, which it relies on its community of members to report. Clips that are deemed in violation of its community guidelines are then removed from the site. No amount of flagging, however, will result in a video being removed unless it is separately deemed inappropriate. So Bieber’s video, which falls into the terrible (rather than terrorism) category, won’t be pulled.
House did not mention how many times the Bieber clip had been flagged by YouTube users. Coincidentally, Bieber himself was one of the very first breakout YouTube stars, having been spotted on the platform by talent scout Scooter Braun. In the years since, his videos have amassed billions of views.
