YouTube looks to dilute nasty programming with curated educational playlists
YouTube, which has come under fire in the past year for allowing conspiracy and hate videos to surface to the top, is making another move to clean up its act.
The Google-owned network today announced what it calls "Learning Playlists," offering a stream of educational content that will stick to one theme and not send viewers to other recommended videos instead.
Initially, the videos will be curated by select partners because "we understand the importance of getting this right," says Neal Mohan, YouTube's Chief Product Officer, who made the announcement here at the VidCon convention, a four-day festival promoting online video.
The companies YouTube will be working with include the Khan Academy, TED-Ed and Crash Course.
YouTube has seen many critics calling it out for showcasing some videos from the underbelly of society to the vast audience of nearly 2 billion people who tune in every day, especially to kids.
Mohan told U.S. TODAY the moves showcase YouTube realizing its "responsibility" as a global platform and, after removing content, raising authoritative voices whilereducing the spread of harmful dis-information. The Learning playlists follow the "same principle," of those moves, he said. "Raise up high-quality content. "
In his speech at VidCon, aimed at the "millions" of video creators who make a living producing content for YouTube, Mohan offered another new update: Super Stickers.
This follows a feature unveiled at the 2018 VidCon, Super Chat, which gives fans access to the creator in exchange for payments. That's now being featured on over 90,000 channels, with some earning as much as $400 a minute, he said.
The Stickers are another tool creators can sell to their fans during live streams and premieres. Stickers will come in a variety of designs across different languages and categories, such as gaming, fashion and beauty, sports, music and food, he said.
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