Drill music is “brainwashing” young men and exciting them to become violent, a campaigner has claimed ahead of a protest outside YouTube headquarters demanding that the platform acts faster to remove threatening music videos.
Up to 100 demonstrators and bereaved family members are expected outside the video-sharing website’s office in London on Friday as part of the #OperationShutdown campaign.
The campaign’s protests are calling for urgent action from institutions including the government and social media platforms on knife crime.
The group is hoping that Friday’s action will encourage a meeting with YouTube bosses and get a response after “several months” of flagging the issue with the Google-owned platform.
Youth worker and one of the organisers, Lucy Martindale, told HuffPost UK: “We have flagged this up with YouTube for several months, and they’re just not taking down the videos.
“If they do, eventually, they’re then put back up again. So we’re saying ’you’re helping fuel some of this violence, you need to...If you put something up on Facebook that goes against their terms, they take it down very quickly, why is this any different? This is real life murder cases.
“And it’s not fair that we’ve got families really upset. It’s going through their platform, so they need to take some responsibility for the kind of content that they’re allowing.”
The rap sub-genre, which generates millions of views online and has seen mainstream success, has become hotly debated for its associations with the London gang scene and knife crime.
But artist Drillminister believes the genre is being unfairly targeted.
He told HuffPost UK in November: “Drill music is the street’s anthems,” he said. “It is the news reported from the streets – directly to you, wherever you are, to your laptops and mobile phones.”
He added: “People that are blaming drill for violent crime in the UK don’t understand it. They’re just pointing the finger.”
YouTube’s harrassment and cyberbullying policy states that “content or behaviour intended to maliciously harass, threaten or bully others is not allowed” on the platform.
The company tells people not to post content if it “incites others to harass or threaten individuals on or off YouTube”, threatens “specific individuals with physical harm or destruction of property”, or features “abusive or threatening behaviour directed at a minor”.
YouTube says it will remove content which violates the policy, with a ‘three-strikes’ system for repeat offenders, which results in a channel being terminated.
“it’s not fair that we’ve got families really upset. It’s going through their platform, so they need to take some responsibility for the kind of content that they’re allowing”
- Lucy Martindale
In February, the Press Association reported that YouTube had removed 102 of 129 videos requested by Metropolitan Police over six months.
Under Operation Domain, the force scans YouTube and other platforms to request videos for removal, while using a database of up to 1,900 videos as an intelligence tool.
But Martindale believes the platform is not sticking to its guidelines.
The videos are mostly drill music, with threats being made to “come to your area, stab you up, and two days later, that’s exactly what they do”, she said.
“Some of the young men making these drill music videos I grew up with and saw them grow as young children, I would say it brainwashes them and it excites them to become violent.
“A bunch of boys I know that started drill music within a year, they started to murder people, so I would say it has a negative impact and it is one of the causes of knife crime. I wouldn’t blame is as a whole, it definitely contributes to knife crime and violent murder.”
She says some of the young people aged 14 to 25 who she works with are becoming more fearful as news and figures surrounding knife crime and stabbings has reached a peak in recent months.
Figures show knife crime offences reached a nine-year high in 2018, with the equivalent of 59 offences being recorded every day in England and Wales, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
In total, 21,484 offences from knives and other offensive weapons including knuckle dusters, sharpened screwdrivers and deliberately broken bottles were recorded.
Martindale said: “Because it’s more highlighted, it shows young people how much bigger the problem is. If you don’t leave the area, you only hear what happens in your particular area.
“Now, because they’re reading on the news, they’re actually more scared, so they limit travelling further, or they’re carrying a knife more often to protect themselves out of fear. It’s causing a lot of fear among young people. Definitely.
“I work with a youth offending team as well. A lot of times, some of the murderers of the families I work with, they’ve been caught with a knife four, five times before that murder happens, so the government are not giving harsh enough sentences for carrying a knife so they just think ‘oh well, I’ll get away with it, I’ll get a caution, it’s fine’.”
Martindale tragically witnessed the murder of her own cousin at the age of nine, and said she has since seen more murders among her friends and family as a result of knife crime. She became a youth worker in 2011.
She hopes to target other social media platforms, including Snapchat, and Facebook-owned Instagram, as well as taking the movement nationwide, starting with Birmingham and Leicester.
It comes after campaigners, including mothers and youth workers, ‘shut down’ Westminster earlier this month, marching through Whitehall to raise awareness about fatal stabbings this year.
The campaign was launched last year by 10 members of bereaved families.