YouTube Takes Steps to Amplify Authoritative News Sources in the App
Why is YouTube taking steps to amplify authoritative news sources in the app?
While Meta works to distance itself from news content, YouTube is looking to provide a more comprehensive and engaging experience around breaking news events via a new, topic-based news coverage feed and a new funding initiative to help newsrooms utilize short-form content.
What is YouTube rolling out first?
First, YouTube is rolling out dedicated streams of related coverage for breaking news events. It will enable users to get more in-depth insight into specific stories.
YouTube’s new news watch page experience will display various reports on a chosen topic when you tap through on that subject. It ranges from official news reports to Shorts, live broadcasts, and more.
What YouTube says about it?
YouTube says that to open the watch page for a specific news topic, and you have to click on a video with the newspaper icon on the homepage or in search results.
What is YouTube’s news watch page?
The news watch page will pull together content from authoritative sources across video-on-demand, live streams, podcasts, and Shorts. Hence, it will allow viewers to dive deep and explore multiple sources and angles.
Hence, YouTube will make it easier to get a more in-depth understanding of a news event and essentially guide YouTube users to further reports they can watch around a news event to help them better understand the various angles and elements.
What are the ‘authoritative sources’ elements of YouTube?
Of course, the “authoritative sources” element will likely spark some debate about how YouTube decides what content to display and exclude from these new feeds.
It will undoubtedly be tagged as some form of alternative news censorship. Still, this will give users an easier way to dig into the coverage of a specific news event via a range of official reports and insights within the app.
It also helps to keep them from stumbling down conspiracy rabbit holes. It has long been highlighted as a critical issue for YouTube in exploring specific topics.
What more does YouTube say about its new news watch page?
YouTube says that the new news watch page experience is being rolled out to users in 40 countries, with desktop and connected TV integration to come.
What is YouTube launching on another new front?
On another front, YouTube is also launching a new “Shorts Innovation Program for News.” It is designed to help news organizations utilize short-form content, the fastest-growing content format in the app.
To start, YouTube works with over 20 organizations across 10 countries and provides $US1.6 million. Over the next year, the specialists of YouTube will work with various news organizations worldwide.
It includes Univision in the U.S., AFP in France, and Mediacorp in Singapore on Shorts content strategy and video production best practices.”
The idea is that this will help to bring more official news coverage to Shorts. It will ensure that YouTube users are well-informed across all content surfaces.
These are good options to help ensure that YouTube users get authoritative news coverage in the app. However, it will also trigger alternative news supporters, who will view this as an effort to suppress expanded views.
But rather than distance itself from what news content people share and engage within its app, YouTube is also working to amplify more trusted coverage.
It will ensure that users get the correct info and are not indoctrinated with extreme and unfounded concepts based on world events.
It is essential for younger audiences, which is why the Shorts funding initiative is crucial.
It is another step towards slowing the spread of misinformation in social apps.
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