YouTube removes millions of videos and channels and billions of comments annually for violating their community guidelines
The sheer volume of content created on YouTube each day requires constant moderation.
According to YouTube, the top reasons for content removal are child safety issues, harassment & cyberbullying, hateful or dangerous speech, pornography, violence and violent extremism, graphic images and spam & scams.
The sheer scope of content removal highlights how bots and nefarious actors exploit the platform. This analysis of the YouTube Community Guidelines enforcement helps illustrate the scale and pervasiveness of removed content along with why it was removed.
What’s inside the report?
A deep dive into the numbers that YouTube reports:
- Number of videos removed: Based on a rough estimation, YouTube potentially removed 965 years worth of video content from their platform in 2025
- Amount of channels removed: Over the last six years, the number of channels removed on YouTube is 2.4x the number of Wikipedia pages and 3.7x the number of Twitch streamer channels
- How many comments are removed: Nearly twice as many comments removed from YouTube than have been posted on Reddit over seven years
Why download?
While YouTube doesn’t share how long content that has violated guidelines lives on the platform, this analysis will help put things into perspective.
Here's a sneak peek:
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