>The videos themselves aren't dangerous, and removing them won't stop the violence

I actually take some issue with that. I think publicizing violence can be a cause of violence (the same critique could be applied to 24/7 media coverage of a shooting tragedy, which is possibly just what the shooter wanted). That's really not a point worth having an argument about, I just thought I'd throw it out.

I think what that sentence actually means is "it's a threat to the edifice of safety we've created and potentially to the usability of our service", i.e. "People want to pretend this kind of stuff doesn't exist and certainly don't want to see it when they are watching cat videos." Honestly, I somewhat agree. If I thought I would stumble across a beheading video when watching YouTube, I'd probably skip it entirely.

Yeah, I might have been a little bit flippant in my dismissal any danger at all, I just found it a bit melodramatic to act like the video is some huge danger.

I agree, I don't want to stumble on a violent video while browsing youtube. I just don't think it is actually a threat to our safety.

I suppose they would say that the threat is that the videos serve as propaganda pieces for these organizations, including use as recruitment tools.

I guess Liveleak is the most dangerous place on the Internet then.

The real threat is people finding out how barbaric our "allies" are, then realising we are the barbarians by proxy.

Seeing things going on in Syria from both factions - which ones would you support round the table? I watched a civilian get slowly bayoneted to death and I'm probably funding that.

Watching some Mexican cartel beheading & torture videos had quite an impact on my views on recreational drugs.

Frankly, I think the world would be quite a different place if Saudi state beheadings were on the BBC evening news.

If you've ever submitted an iOS app and had a youtube frame/etc that allowed unfiltered searches, the app submission team will nearly always look up "Violent," and reject the app based on the ability to look up Violent videos.

Violent videos just seems to be a trigger point for a lot of politics/companies/etc.

I remember the first time I got that, and went, "well, yeah, you can look up puppies too." But, hey, maybe someone is downloading our app just to get through some youtube filters their parents set up.

The threat may be to the standards and community that have been part of YouTube's success. Sites like Dailymotion and LiveLeaks are a totally different world for a reason.

A lot of ISIS recruitment is through propaganda videos, and a video on Youtube has a larger reach then one hosted on a more obscure site. It is considered a major issue here in the UK, although it is often overblown like such things always are.