YouTube announced on Monday that they are launching a new journalism initiative to “support the future of news in online video, and product features we’ve been working on to improve the news experience on YouTube” - including, apparently, new methods to target what the outlet deems fake new--er, "misleading information.'
The announcement is a part of the Google News Initiative which launched in March of this year. The purpose of the GNI is to “Empower news organizations through technological innovation."
YouTube also said they'll begin including links to sites like Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica above topical videos “that have often been subject to misinformation," such as the moon landing. In their announcement, YouTube mentions far-left publication, Vox News as one of the news outlets that have agreed to work with them as experts in the media field, adding the video-hosting outlet will begin focusing on promoting and highlighting breaking, local, and top news.
Under the new system, top and breaking news will come from “authoritative sources” who report the breaking news first - to be determined, of course, by YouTube. They will also include shorter links of breaking stories to the full developing stories with a disclaimer that “breaking and developing news can rapidly change.”
In their quest “to make it easier to find quality news,” some people have expressed some concerns about demonetization and dismissing current content creators, along with concerns that YouTube will begin subjectively weeding out so-called "fake news" along partisan lines.
One of the last things I was looking for from @YouTube was a way to bring in even more mainstream media outlets who have a habit (and incentive) to discredit & undermine the creators who have made your platform the success that it is.
— Powerbang (@PowerbangGaming) July 10, 2018
Why use the money on something the platform doesn't want instead of improving the algorithm so random videos that dont deserve it get flagged and so that bots and fakes don't go around trying to round up views for content they didn't make?? But of course you won't listen. Oh well
— jøcelyn (@Fauzzball) July 9, 2018
Why don’t you put 25 million into fixin the demonization issues
— xd aidan (@aidancascos) July 10, 2018
YouTube has reportedly restricted and demonetized the videos of several conservative voices on their platform.
PragerU, a conservative educational platform sued YouTube in 2017 for restricting their videos deeming their content “inappropriate” for young audiences. Since, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that YouTube does not have to equally distribute its services since it is a private company.
Steven Crowder’s conservative comedic podcast ‘Louder with Crowder’ videos were restricted for the same reason as PragerU in 2016.
Dave Rubin, host of the political and social talk show The Rubin Report, reported several of his videos have been demonetized and backlogged. He even says an interview with one of YouTube’s oldest content creators was demonetized.
According to the Media Research Center’s online censorship report, “Conservatives and their organizations have been suspended, had their content deleted and been banned on a variety of platforms.”