YouTube announced plans on Wednesday to delete thousands of videos and channels promoting “white supremacy and hate”.

The move was made to prevent extremism and hate speech, the company said.

This comes after in March another tech giant Facebook announced a ban on “praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism,” which the social network company said it start enforcing in April. According to Facebook, these concepts are “deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place” on its services.

“It’s our responsibility to protect that, and prevent our platform from being used to incite hatred, harassment, discrimination and violence”, according to YouTube.

YouTube, as well as Facebook and Twitter, have avoided criticism of censorship and bias against mainstream conservative voices in the United States by claiming their algorithms were automatic and did not discriminate based on political ideology.

Their critics, however, point out the social media platforms were implementing a double standard, as in the vast majority of cases content published on right-leaning channels had been repeatedly muffled.

There is no legal definition of hate speech in the United States, as all speech, except for incitement to acts of violence, is permitted.