The Guardian Australia’s YouTube channel contains a wide range of hateful and homophobic comments which the media organisation has failed to remove.
The revelations came after The Guardian's Media Correspondent Amanda Meade, through consultation with Kevin Rudd, published an article attempting to blame Sky News Australia for comments YouTube users left on its channel.
“Taking cheap shots at us, using the hateful rants of people who should not be amplified, to try to damage your perceived commercial or political enemies, well, I think that’s almost as low as the hate speech itself,” Sky News host Chris Kenny said.
Mr Kenny also revealed that a quick search on The Guardian’s YouTube page uncovered comments which were “hateful, homophobic, and otherwise offensive”.
The comments – which included remarks about “the gay agenda” and comparing homosexuality to pedophilia and beastiality – were still live on The Guardian Australia’s YouTube page at the time of publishing this article, despite being flagged to Guardian Editor Lenore Taylor earlier this week.
Sky News Australia, with 1.6 million subscribers, is the country’s largest news organisation on YouTube and attracts significantly more comments than The Guardian Australia which has just over 9,400 subscribers despite being active since 2015.
The Guardian Australia did not respond to questions about why it failed to moderate comments on videos hardly anyone comments on.