The big tech giants have been overselling the effectiveness of AI in countering hate on their platforms. Our democratic and open societies must put aside the notion that AI is the panacea for the problem at hand. Social polarization and growing mistrust across the planet will continue unless elected officials regulate Big Tech. In 2017, 250 companies suspended advertising contracts with Google over its alleged failure to moderate YouTube’s extremist content. A year later, Google’s senior vice president of advertising and commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, says the company is making strong progress in platform safety to regain the lost confidence of its clients. However, a recent study by the NGO Counter Extremism Project refutes the effectiveness of the company’s effort to limit and delete extremist videos. More transparency and accountability from YouTube is needed, given that the study found that over 90 per cent of ISIS videos were uploaded more than once, with no action taken against the accounts that violated the company’s terms of service.