British YouTube users are amongst the most sensitive in the world, executives at the site have claimed.

Amid demands for an independent regulator to police its content they said Britons are amongst the most likely to object to footage hosted on the site.

The company has reacted by introducing special “Britain-only” policies following a raft of complaints from users over gang-related videos.

Victoria Grand, head of policy at YouTube, told The Times: “The UK is a big flagging country. We get a lot of videos flagged up in the UK because of issues that British people are concerned about which maybe aren’t an issue in the US, such as the brandishing of guns.”

A House of Commons select committee last year censured YouTube for failing to ensure that inappropriate or offensive videos were not uploaded and suggested that a new independent industry body be set up to enforce the vetting of potentially harmful content.

Scott Rubin, YouTube’s head of communication, said: “In terms of outside regulation verses internal regulation, this is a very new world, so the people who are closest to that world are the ones who understand best. We have a vested interest in making this site a place that’s safe for advertisers and good for the community. Regulators coming from the outside would not have this deep understanding.”

Calls have also been made by internet safety groups across Europe for websites such as YouTube to be subject to the same degree of regulation as television channels, but Mr Rubin rejected the demands.

“We are not a broadcaster,” he said.

Criticism intensified after two gunmen who shot dead students at schools in the US and in Finland were found to have posted videos of themselves and their guns on YouTube prior to carrying out their killings. Last week, the site was inundated by hackers uploading pornography disguised as music videos and controversy flared up over an NHS informational video showing a schoolgirl apparently giving birth in a Leicester playground.

YouTube representatives have been in Britain in the past week to meet MPs and officials from the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom to demonstrate new internal safety measures introduced to bolster the self-regulation.

The site has partnered with the British organisations Childnet and Beatbullying to introduce a Safety Centre where users, especially children, are offered advice on how to report and deal with people who are harassing or threatening them on YouTube.

YouTube has also signed up to the code of practice set out by the EU Safer Social Networking Initiative and is in consultation with the new UK Council for Child Internet Safety on how to protect and inform children of the dangers of viewing inappropriate content.

However, none of the regulations set out by these bodies are mandatory, leaving user-led regulation as the main form of policing available on YouTube.

Users can flag videos they believe to be in breach of YouTube’s guidelines on violent, offensive, obscene or inappropriate material. These videos are then checked out by a team of reviewers who have received training, including from the FBI, on how to spot dangerous material on their site.

Last September, a Times investigation found a series of videos on YouTube showing gang-members in Liverpool brandishing guns and knives and patrolling the streets around the area where 11-year-old Rhys Jones was shot dead.

In response to these concerns - and to a relatively high proportion of the site’s flags being made by users in Britain - YouTube created a Britain-only policy where the “menacing brandishing of weapons” was no longer allowed in uploaded videos. Those videos, when flagged up, have been made unavailable to British users, though can still be viewed in other countries.

These measures have been introduced after YouTube conceded they could not hope to police the 20 hours of video being uploaded onto the site every minute. The site has, instead, introduced optional swear-word filters for user-generated text on the site and has updated its technology to allow its reviewers to police flagged videos more quickly.

John Whittingdale MP, chairman of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said he was encouraged by the changes to the policing of the site, but vowed to remain watchful of the situation. “It’s something we will continue to monitor and if any further areas for concern arise, we will raise that with them,” he said.