The Australian, 7 July 2026
‘Serious deficiency’: YouTube refuses to pull Bondi conspiracy video despite RC pressure
By James Dowling
From The Australian
TikTok’s trust and safety global policy safety head Zachary Hecht was called before the antisemitism royal commission.
Social media giant YouTube has refused to remove a Bondi massacre conspiracy video despite accusations from the antisemitism royal commission of a “serious deficiency” in its publishing guidelines, saying the clip that described the deadly attack as a “false flag” didn’t breach misinformation or hate speech policies.
The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Tuesday called executives from TikTok and YouTube, with delegates from the former conceding their content moderators had, in one case, wrongly overruled an AI decision to block a user from posting “hate speech” targeting a witness at the commission and removed the video only after it was mentioned in evidence to the inquiry.
Asked whether YouTube’s misinformation policy covered “objectively false information about an event”, YouTube Australia senior manager Rachel Lord said videos must carry a risk of serious real-world harm before they would be in breach.