Panel wants more vetting of video websites

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - Video-sharing websites like YouTube must do more to protect people from the Internet's "dark side" such as pornography or images of child abuse or bullying, an influential group of MPs said on Thursday.

Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee said sites which publish pictures, videos or other material from the public should vet the content far more closely.

Without proper checks, sites may unwittingly publish pornography, child abuse or other illegal content, the lawmakers said in a report.

YouTube told the committee that checking everything before publication was impractical because 10 hours of material is added every minute. However, the legislators rejected that, saying some sites already vet all content.

"To plead that the volume of traffic prevents screening of content is clearly not correct," they said in their report. "Providers such as MySpace have not been deterred from reviewing material posted on their sites.

"Pro-active review of contents should be standard practice for sites hosting user-generated content."

The committee said the need for change was highlighted by an alleged gang rape video that was posted on YouTube and viewed 600 times before being removed.

They dismissed YouTube owner Google's argument that sites should not have to check all content, just as telephone companies and email providers do not monitor all traffic.