YouTube has been accused of having a “really serious deficiency” in its hateful speech guidelines after the royal commission was told a video suggesting the Bondi Beach massacre was a false flag event remained on the video-sharing platform.Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, Richard Lancaster, issued a stinging rebuke of YouTube on Tuesday after its head of government affairs in Australia, Rachel Lord, confirmed that the video had been reviewed and had not violated any guidelines.The video featured in evidence to the commission last week, in which Bondi massacre victim Arsen Ostrovsky detailed the attacks levelled at him on social media after the December 14 massacre.YouTube’s head of government affairs in Australia, Rachel Lord.Louise KennerleyThe Jewish Australian, who had taken shelter in Israel during the October 7, 2023 attacks, had been described as a “trauma tourist” and a “false flag actor” after a photo of his blood-soaked head was shared online, with his permission, following the terror attack.Ostrovksy told the commission on June 29 that despite complaints to X, YouTube, and Meta, only Meta had taken action by removing AI-manipulated images of himself from Instagram and Facebook. X and YouTube only confirmed receipt of the report.A video titled “False Flag. Why the Bondi Beach Narrative Doesn’t Add Up” remained on YouTube, he said.Lord on Tuesday acknowledged that the video was still on the platform, prompting Lancaster to ask her whether, based on her earlier evidence to the commission, it “constitutes a very clear breach of YouTube’s community guidelines”.“I know the teams have reviewed the video, and they have determined it to be non-violative,” Lord told Lancaster.“Beyond what I shared, I don’t have any understanding in any detail of the basis on which they’ve reached this conclusion under the hate speech policy.”After Lord’s defence of YouTube’s position, Lancaster said: “I suggest to you that this shows a really serious deficiency in YouTube’s guidelines that this video remains accessible to the public.”Lord responded: “I appreciate that feedback and will be sure to share that internally as well.“What I would say in response is that we set our guidelines for our platform and as we have seen in Australia, the difficulties in regulating content, it’s hard and can be sensitive,” she said.Earlier, TikTok executives from New York appeared voluntarily and in person before the commission, which is probing the role social media plays in fuelling hate online.The commission heard that TikTok activated its “crisis response protocol” within an hour of the Bondi Beach massacre, which included contacting the eSafety Commission, the NSW Police and the Australian Federal Police to offer any support needed.The platform’s global head of partnerships, elections and market integrity, Valiant Richey, told the commission that it immediately began scouring for “shocking and graphic content” on its platform.Valiant Richey, global head of partnerships, elections and market integrity at TikTok, arrives at the royal commission on Tuesday.Louise KennerleyRichey told the commission that while much has been made of “content moderation at scale”, TikTok also deploys “internal risk identification and containment teams” to contain trends “before they scale up”. This is what happened after the Bondi terror attack, he said.Within 90 minutes of 15 people being shot dead at Bondi on the first night of Hanukkah, TikTok implemented “proactive measures to prevent uploads of footage of the attack circulating online”.“This is something that can move quickly, so you need teams that can respond quickly and in very rough terms, this is not a perfect analogy, it’s like our basic police force versus a SWAT team,” Richey said.Zachary Hecht, TikTok’s global head of policy, trust and safety, told the commission that in 2025, more than 336 million videos were posted to the platform, with 270,749 removed for violating safety and civility guidelines.Zachary Hecht, TikTok’s global head of policy, trust and safety, arriving at the royal commission on Tuesday.Louise KennerleyHecht told the commission that while he did not have the specific numbers for the first three months of 2026, TikTok removed 98 per cent of violating content in Australia “proactively before a report” was made to the platform.He said the majority of content TikTok removes is done via auto-moderation.“We are actively trying to identify and remove content that violates our community guidelines,” Hecht told the commission.Hecht was asked in the inquiry about a video that was blocked by the platform’s automatic moderation process, but on appeal that decision was overturned by a human.Following a complaint from the Australian-based Dor Foundation, the content was later deemed to be “clearly a violation of our prohibition on hate speech and hateful ideology”, Hecht told the inquiry.Hecht said that there might be examples of automated moderation getting the decision right, only for a human to complicate it.After a longer-than-usual hearing day, the commission will return for further hearings on Thursday.