Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC.
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YouTube should include diverse opinions, but videos that violate it policies should — and are — removed, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee.
Pichai was responding to Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the ranking member of the committee, who asked how the massive video site fights the spread of white supremacy and political extremism.
“YouTube is an important platform. We do want to allow for diverse perspectives and opinions, but we have rules of the road,” Pichai said. “When we find violations on our policies, we do remove those videos.”
Pichai leads the company running the world’s largest search engine, its biggest free video service in YouTube and the most popular operating system for phones worldwide with Android. But like other tech giants, Google and YouTube have faced intensified scrutiny in the last two years, on issues such as data privacy, offensive videos, political bias and the company’s work in China.
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For the Republican-led House, a big topic of discussion has been alleged bias against conservatives on Google’s platforms, including YouTube.
Pichai repeatedly emphasized YouTube’s and Google’s political neutrality in what it surfaces. On YouTube, Pichai said, the company examines potential violations on a video-by-video basis but it does take into account repeat offenders.
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