A bunch of porn was hidden on YouTube for months with Irish language titles

Whoops! The site didn't notice dozens of X-rated films for nearly half a year

Published February 11, 2015 1:52PM (EST)

   (<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-79405p1.html?cr=00&pl=edit-00">Annette Shaff</a> / <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/editorial?cr=00&pl=edit-00">Shutterstock.com</a>)
(Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com)

YouTube has removed dozens of pornographic videos that had been uploaded to the site under Irish language titles, which allowed the videos to hang out online for four months in violation of YouTube's policies prohibiting sexually explicit imagery. The porn films, all of which had been uploaded in October of last year, were discovered by a man who was just looking for something to watch when he searched the word "scannán" -- Gaelic for "film" -- and came across X-rated movies aplenty.

The man's roommate, Irish language journalist Maitiú Ó Coimín, posted an article about the discovery after digging a little deeper. "I looked a bit further into it, and there were about 15 to 20 films of a questionable nature," Coimín told the Irish Independent. "These were real pornographic films."

YouTube, apparently, had no idea the videos existed, but was reportedly "quick to take action" in removing the pornographic material. The site issued a statement obtained by the Irish Independent:

YouTube's community guidelines clearly state that sexually explicit content is not allowed on our site.

We remove videos and channels that violate our policies when flagged for our attention.

YouTube staff review flagged videos 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to determine whether they violate our community guidelines.

According to The Independent, which did the brave work of looking for more deftly hidden YouTube porn, searching for the word "scannán" still seems to bring up X-rated results, but the clips don't have Irish titles -- instead, they're in English, Spanish and French, with the Gaelic term used as a tag. But the videos also aren't pornographic: "These videos, although they had suggestive titles and thumbnails, actually turned out to be retro B-movies." Surely, though, there are other lesser used languages being used to hide pornography in plain site -- Basque, perhaps?


By Jenny Kutner

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