Oldham Council removes video archive from YouTube over misuse

The council had broadcast meetings live on YouTube and then left the recordings on the site for rewatching

A council has removed an online archive of its meetings after footage was edited and used "out of context", its deputy chief executive has said.

Oldham Council had previously allowed recordings of meetings to be made available for rewatching on YouTube.

Sayyed Osman said that would now no longer happen as the material had been "used maliciously... to unfairly target and elicit hate and harassment".

Opposition councillors have criticised the move as a "backwards step".

The council had previously broadcast its major meetings live on the video streaming site, including one which saw protesters angrily heckle councillors over failings in how child sexual exploitation was handled in the town, and left them on the site for people to rewatch.

'Banana republic'

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the council had had to "review" its policies after being told the footage was being reused on other platforms.

Mr Osman said it had "sadly come to our attention that some people have been video editing and using footage from public meetings out of context".

"This has, in our view, then been used maliciously in communication to unfairly target and elicit hate and harassment towards people," he said.

"This has meant that it was necessary to review all our policies and procedures around public meetings, including webcasting and web hosting of videos."

He said the council valued "transparency and democracy" and were "keen to ensure we look at best practice to get this right whilst ensuring we meet our duty of care towards our staff".

He added that the meetings would "continue to be made accessible via a live stream on our website", where the minutes of each meeting could also be accessed".

Liberal Democrat and Conservative opposition councillors have both separately written to the authority's chief executive asking for the decision to be reversed.

The Conservative member for Royton North, Lewis Quigg, said the actions were "akin to those of a banana republic and tin-pot dictatorship", while Liberal Democrat group leader Howard Sykes said he was "deeply dismayed by this decision, which I feel represents a very unwelcome backwards step in terms of openness, accountability and trust".

"We cannot call ourselves a listening council if we are preventing people listening to council processes," he added.

"Without a robust and formal process for capturing what is said at council meetings and committees... recorded meetings play a vital role in our democratic process."