YouTube, the global video platform, cannot alone take on the onus of fact-checking the mammoth stream of information flowing through its portals, according to a senior company executive.
The Google-owned video platform maintains that it can help redirect users to relevant content, as it battles the widespread condemnation of being a purveyor of fake news, a charge being levelled at social media networks, including Facebook.
“We don’t believe in being the arbiters of truth in any country, nor should any country want us to be the arbiters of truth,” Robert Kyncl, the chief business officer for the video platform, told ET.
“What we do believe in, is providing as much relevant information that is factually correct,” Kyncl added, while maintaining that tracking veracity of content when it is available in such large scale as on YouTube can be a tough task.
The issue of fake news, hoaxes, and misleading videos continues to grow in India, especially ahead of the election season, threatening to muddy the political landscape.
To tackle the issue of fake news, YouTube has been trying to redirect searches by linking them with ‘authoritative sources of information’ that include organisations involved in fact-checking as also linkages to such platforms including Wikipedia, much to critics’ chagrin.
YouTube’s critics maintain that setting a crowd-sourced information platform such as Wikipedia as a dependable information cue is hardly prudent, given the platform’s tendency to get inflicted by user vandalism. Disputing that, Kyncl maintains that the responsibility of the same cannot be YouTube’s to bear.
“Wikipedia is a system of information that is working better than any other system of information on a large scale. Just like we have a community of flaggers who are helping us with irresponsible content, there are people who are responsible for Wikipedia pages to do exactly the same. We do believe it is the right place to link to,” Kyncl said firmly.
The issue of fake news however, has done little to shake YouTube’s growth in India where daily active users have grown 100% thanks to affordable data penetration through Reliance Jio and a new wave of content creators that YouTube has been focussing on over the last 2 years.
“What Jio’s reach has translated into, is amazing growth in consumption in YouTube both in daily active viewers which are growing 100% YoY, but also in terms of total watch time growth and our reach which covers 80% of 18-55 year olds in India,” said Kyncl declining to share specific numbers on the user data.
To be sure, YouTube has 225 million monthly active users on its mobile platform alone which translates to about 7.5 million daily active users on mobile.
To further capitalise on this growth as India’s online video consumption market swells, YouTube is looking to launch its paid video streaming subscription service YouTube Red in India as it charts a global expansion for the service.
“We were working busily on extending all our rights for YouTube Red globally. Now that the hurdle is clear, we will be looking towards global expansion of YouTube Red. Global would include India,” he said without alluding to a specific timeline for when the service would be made available. “We don’t have an exact timeline but India is one of our most important markets at any level. So it is squarely in our plans.”
Amongst YouTube’s top 10 countries India is one of the fastest growing – both in terms of total watch time and mobile watch time. While total watch-time grew over 400% year-on-year on mobile devices (mobile+tablets), India is one of the few countries where over 80% of total watch-time is spent on mobile devices.
