YouTube has announced plans to increase enforcement against videos featuring egregious clickbait, particularly those that mislead viewers about content related to breaking news or current events. The platform will begin rolling out the changes in India over the next few months.
Egregious clickbait refers to videos whose titles or thumbnails make promises or claims not delivered in the content, often leaving viewers feeling misled. This is especially problematic when the content concerns timely information, such as political events or breaking news.
Examples of egregious clickbait include titles like ‘The President Resigned!’ when the video does not cover any resignation, or thumbnails labelled ‘Top Political News’ that fail to include relevant news content.
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The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has been identifying such channels on a monthly basis and urging YouTube to remove them. After efforts from the I&B ministry, the platform has now introduced policy changes.
“To ensure creators have time to adjust to these enforcement updates, we’ll start by removing content that violates this policy without issuing a strike. And as we continue to educate creators, our enforcement efforts will prioritise new video uploads moving forward.” The platform stated.
In response to these issues, YouTube will initially remove offending content without issuing strikes to creators, allowing them time to adjust to the new policy. Moving forward, enforcement will focus on new video uploads, with the aim of reducing misleading content on the platform.
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