YouTube aims to produce half of the trend videos from its own site – TechCrunch



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Youtube According to the last quarterly newsletter of Executive Director Susan Wojcicki, half of the videos presented in her "Trends" tab must come from sources from the company's website.

This letter, addressed to YouTube users, is designed to dispel the concerns of the site's top stars about copyright issues, advertising policies, and monetization of videos, as well as to reduce their presence in site trends.

YouTube's main contributors worry that their footprint on the trends tab will decrease as the company favors "safer" content from other more traditional media, such as video clips. television, trailers and music videos.

The quarter was difficult for YouTube. The company had to face another child predator scandal, which prompted it to to completely close the comment sections on most videos featuring minors.

The video company owned by Alphabet has also been forced to fight its role in spreading a global anti-vaccination campaign that has helped to promote the resurgence of measles cases worldwide, creating a new epidemic in the United States. -United. largely eradicated in the country.

Beyond the monetization of anti-vaccination videos, the role played by YouTube in broadcasting videos taken by the supremacist mbad murderer who killed many people in attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, has provoked a brutal reaction against the company in capitals around the world.

Wojcicki addressed both incidents in the letter by writing:

In February, we announced the suspension of comments on most YouTube videos featuring minors. We did this to protect children from predatory comments (with the exception of a small number of channels with the manpower needed to actively moderate their comments and take additional steps to protect children). We know how vital the comments are to creators. Every day, creators tell me how useful comments are to interact with fans, get feedback, and help guide future videos. I also know that this change has had an impact on many innocent creators, from professional creators to young people, to their parents, who publish videos. But in the end, it was a compromise that we made because we believe that protecting children on our platform should be the most important guiding principle.

The following month, we took unprecedented action in the aftermath of the Christchurch tragedy. Our teams immediately mobilized to remove the non-compliant content. To counter the huge volume of uploaded videos with violent images, we have chosen to temporarily interrupt some of our processes and features. This meant that a number of videos that did not actually violate community guidelines, including a small set of news and commentary, were scanned and kept off the shelf (up to the end). what their owners call and be reinstated). But given the stakes, it was another compromise that we deemed necessary. And with Sri Lanka's devastating attacks, our teams have worked tirelessly to ensure that we remove the illegal content. In both cases, our systems have triggered authoritative information and limited the spread of hatred and misinformation.

Given these examples, Wojcicki's commitment to ensure that half of the videos on the company's Trends tab are from YouTube itself seems … risky.

The company must however do something. The talent on which advertisers and the public depend is very concerned about the many actions YouTube has taken recently.

From the point of view of YouTube's best talent, the company is abandoning them even as regulators restrict the way they are able to make the videos that defined the site in its history.

In Europe, legislation is being attacked by lawmakers who have legislated to legitimize fair use – and YouTube users fear that society will begin to restrict the broadcast of their videos to fragile copyright claims.

"[We] are also still very concerned about Article 13 (now Article 17), which is part of the recently adopted EU Copyright Directive, "said Wojcicki. "While we support the rights of copyright holders (YouTube has agreements with almost all music companies and television broadcasters today), we are concerned about vague and unclear requirements. verified by the new directive. This could create serious limitations for what YouTube creators can download. This could reduce the revenue generated by YouTube for traditional media and music companies and potentially devastate the many European creators who have created their business on YouTube. "

In many ways, the letter is merely a continuation of the themes that Wojcicki outlined in his first address to the company's user base.

This is a crucial moment for YouTube, as the public is increasingly pushing for society to be more responsive to the videos it distributes and the users that make up the bulk of its creative community rub against the growing constraints.

The company seems to be reacting by pledging to be more transparent in the future, but it will be increasingly difficult for it to navigate between the pressure of advertisers for "safe" videos and producers for a more great freedom of creation – all with traditional media the company is more and more in the spotlight and new players like TikTok deserve more attention.

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