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According to a senior executive, YouTube aims to prevent misinformation by silencing “bad content” posted by its users.
Neal Mohan, the platform’s chief product officer, said removing nearly 10 million videos each quarter was “almost enough” to stop the spread of information that YouTube deemed objectionable, so the platform was raising its preferred voices and deliberately turning down the dislikes.
The most important thing we can do is to increase the good and reduce the bad. mohan He said in a post on YouTube’s blog. “This is why we collect information from trusted sources on YouTube and reduce the spread of videos containing harmful misinformation. When people now search for news or information, they get results optimized for quality, not how sensational the content might be.”
he In Wednesday’s blog post, he wrote that YouTube is investing in its products to “strike a reasonable balance between freedom of expression and freedom of access.”
For information on COVID-19, YouTube relies on “expert consensus” for health organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization to “follow the science as it evolves.” mohan said.
As a result, YouTube removed more than 1 million videos related to the coronavirus pandemic from February 2020 to Wednesday, he said.
while Mr. mohan Saying that the majority of the videos it removed did not reach 10 views on its platform, YouTube also crashed users with large audiences.
For example, this month, as YouTube said the Republican of Kentucky violated misinformation policies in claims about the effectiveness of masks in stopping COVID-19, Sen. Rand banned Paul from posting videos for a week.
The Kentucky Republican tweeted that YouTube’s ban was a “badge of honor” and shared the banned video on Rumble, a video platform that wants to compete with Google-owned YouTube. The video has had more than 450,000 views on Rumble as of Thursday morning, and no other video appearing on Mr. Paul’s Rumble channel has had more than 120,000 views.
Mr. mohan said he recognizes that “one person’s misinformation is another person’s deeply held belief” and that removals can have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
“Exclusions are a blind tool and, if used too widely, can send the message that controversial ideas are unacceptable,” he said. mohan said. “We are seeing a disturbing new momentum around governments ordering the removal of content for political purposes. And personally, I believe we are better off as a society when we can have an open discussion.”
YouTube banned former President Trump in the wake of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in March that her platform will end Mr Trump’s impeachment once the risk of violence ends. Mr Trump stays away from YouTube.
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