YouTube cracks down on violent drill music videos

Met police commissioner says the clips
feature lyrics that glamorise murder and stabbings

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The Google-owned video streaming service has so far
taken down 30 videos that were flagged by Metropolitan Police
Commissioner Cressida Dick for “fuelling a surge in murders and
violent crime in London”, BBC
News reports. 

Videos of drill artists – a genre of rap music that often
features lyrics that “detail vivid accounts of taking drugs and
violence” – have been the main target in YouTube and the Met’s
crackdown, the BBC adds. 

Earlier this month, Dick told LBC radio: “These [drill music videos] are
associated with lyrics which are about glamorising serious
violence: murder, stabbings. They describe the stabbings in great
detail, with great joy and excitement.”

She added: “In those videos, they [the gangs who make the
videos] taunt each other and say what they’re going to do to each
other and specifically what they are going to do to
who.”

The violent videos have been an issue for the Met for some
time. 

Over the past two years, the force has asked YouTube to take
down between 50 and 60 videos. But Sky News says the police have to prove they
incite violence for the requests to be successful.

Of the videos that were flagged, 30 were found to be in
violation of the website’s policies. They were therefore deleted
from the platform, the news site says. 

The Met has also amassed a database of more than 1,400 videos as
an “intelligence tool” to help crack down on violent crime, says
Metro. The database has already helped launch
more than 60 murder investigations this year.

Responding to the crackdown, drill music promoter
Pressplay said the Met had “forced” YouTube to delete some of its
videos from the website.

But the promoter said the clips would “probably be back up
in the next few weeks”.