3:30pm UK, Friday May 23, 2008

Thousands of people have been able to watch a sickening video showing the massacre of young Russian men before it was eventually deleted from YouTube.

Video lasted 10 minutes

The horrific footage shows the terrified men lying beside a road having their throats slit in turn.

It was posted on Sunday, May 18. Three days later it was still there and had been viewed more than 8,300 times.

YouTube promises that videos flagged by users as inappropriate will be removed from the site.

The film clip was removed within two hours of Sky News Online contacting YouTube on Wednesday.

The video was found while YouTube was being searched by activists to weed out animal cruelty videos and brought to Sky's attention by viewer Robert Read.

He said: "This video was horrific to me, a 33-year-old man, so just think what affect this would have on someone like a child!"

The 10-minute video was apparently posted by a 17-year-old Russian.

The description which accompanied it said: "This is a little part of the full horror!"

Mr Read said: "While the video title and description was in what looked to be Russian or a similar script that is no excuse for YouTube to allow such videos on to a public website.

"If YouTube cannot discriminate against foreign language entries like they can with English text... then maybe they should review their policies. Ideally, every video should be checked by a moderator."

YouTube says its own community of users police their site.

A spokesman said: "Sadly as with any form of communication, there is a tiny minority of people who try to break the rules.

"When people see content that they think is inappropriate they can flag it and our staff then review it. If the content breaks our terms then we remove it and if a user repeatedly breaks the rules we disable their account."

But John Beyer, director of campaign group Mediawatch-uk, said: "While I recognise the argument about regulation at the periphery, allowing the public to decide what is acceptable or not is simply passing the buck.

"It points up a lack of internal regulation. People take advantage of the system and by the time someone takes notice it's too late - the damage has been done.

"It's a huge problem. We need an international legal framework to decide what is permissible. This sort of material should simply not be uploaded."

Mr Read added: "How many more are out there - hidden by foreign languages or deliberately mis-labelled by the user who posts them?"