Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to its bandwidth limitations and the site’s potential for distraction. Starting with the Oculus Quest, the app was updated for compatibility with mixed-reality passthrough modes on VR headsets. In November 2016, YouTube released YouTube VR, a dedicated version with an interface for VR devices, for Google’s Daydream mobile VR platform on Android.
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In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales. According to a 2020 study, viewership of far-right videos on YouTube peaked in 2017 and “a growing body of journalistic evidence” suggested that YouTube was radicalizing young men through its recommendation engine, but that such evidence was “fraught with a bias towards sensationalism”. TED curator Chris Anderson described a phenomenon by which geographically distributed individuals in a certain field share their independently developed skills in YouTube videos, thus challenging others to improve their own skills, and spurring invention and evolution in that field.
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. When updates are available, the app updates automatically. If you find an app that you think is harmful, report it to us.
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In April 2012, a court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube could be held responsible for copyrighted material posted by its users. YouTube’s owner Google announced in November 2015 that they would help cover the legal cost in select cases where they believe fair use defenses apply. From 2007 to 2009 organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material. YouTube has an estimated 14.8 billion videos with about 4% of those never having a view. The company stated the decision was in response to experiments which confirmed that smaller YouTube creators were more likely to be targeted in dislike brigading and harassment.
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YouTube typically takes 45 percent of the advertising revenue from videos in the Partner Program, with 55 percent going to the uploader. Since its founding in 2005, the American video-sharing website YouTube has been faced with a growing number of privacy issues, including allegations that it allows users to upload unauthorized copyrighted material and allows personal information from young children to be collected without their parents’ consent. The platform was tested in India and later expanded to other countries, including the United States in March 2021, with videos allowed up to 1 minute long.
Following criticisms of its implementation of those systems, YouTube started treating all videos designated as “made for kids” as liable under COPPA on January 6, 2020. By February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube videos were being watched every day, and 400 hours worth of videos were uploaded every minute. YouTube officially launched the “polymer” redesign of its user interfaces based on Material Design language as its default, as well as a redesigned logo that is built around the service’s play button emblem in August 2017. In April 2010, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” became the most-viewed video, becoming the first video to reach 200 million views on May 9, 2010.
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On April 9, 2025, YouTube expressed support for the NO FAKES Act of 2025, introduced by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and announced an expansion of its pilot program that is designed to identify content generated by AI. On July 30, 2025, amid the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023 in the United Kingdom, Google announced that it would begin to enforce “age assurance” policies for selected users in the United States as a trial. In December 2024, YouTube began testing a new multiplayer feature for that service, supporting multiplayer functionality across desktop and mobile devices.
- Joining the YouTube Kids app, the company created a supervised mode, designed more for tweens, in 2021.
- Videos of the 2.5% of artists categorized as “mega”, “mainstream” and “mid-sized” received 90.3% of the relevant views on YouTube and Vevo in that year.
- It also found more “mainstream-adjacent Conservative creators” gaining over alt-right and extremist videos by 2020.
- An independent test in 2009 uploaded multiple versions of the same song to YouTube and concluded that while the system was “surprisingly resilient” in finding copyright violations in the audio tracks of videos, it was not infallible.
- Video categories on YouTube include music videos, video clips, news, short and feature films, songs, documentaries, movie trailers, teasers, TV spots, live streams, vlogs, and more.
- YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google.
YouTube Play Buttons, a part of the YouTube Creator Rewards, are a recognition by YouTube of its most popular channels. Usually, no more than half of the eligible videos have a pre-roll advertisement, due to a lack of interested advertisers. According to TubeMogul, in 2013 a pre-roll advertisement on YouTube (one that is shown before the video starts) cost advertisers on average $7.60 per 1000 views. Google stated that it had “begun an extensive review of our advertising policies and have made a public commitment to put in place changes that give brands more control over where their ads appear”. The government demanded assurances that its advertising would “be delivered safely and appropriately”. In May 2013, YouTube introduced a trial scheme of 53 subscription channels with prices ranging from $0.99 to $6.99 a month.
- The system, which was initially called “Video Identification” and later became known as Content ID, creates an ID File for copyrighted audio and video material, and stores it in a database.
- Journalist Virginia Heffernan stated in The New York Times that such videos have “surprising implications” for the dissemination of culture and even the future of classical music.
- The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports.
- In 2014, YouTube announced a subscription service known as “Music Key”, which bundled ad-free streaming of music content on YouTube with the existing Google Play Music service.
- Since its purchase by Google, YouTube has expanded beyond the core website into mobile apps, network television, games, and the ability to link with other platforms.
- In December 2024, YouTube added the functionality of automatic language dubbing, which uses AI to produce translations of videos into different languages.
- The majority of YouTube’s advertising revenue goes to the publishers and video producers who hold the rights to their videos; the company retains 45% of the ad revenue.
In March 2021, Google announced plans to gradually deprecate the Google Play Movies & TV app, and eventually migrate all users to the YouTube app’s Movies & TV store to view, rent and purchase movies and TV shows (first affecting Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TV users on July 15). In early 2018, Cohen began hinting at the possible launch of YouTube’s new subscription music streaming service, a platform that would compete with other services such as Spotify and Apple Music. YouTube Premium was originally announced on November 12, 2014, as “Music Key”, a subscription music streaming service, and was intended to integrate with and replace the existing Google Play Music “All Access” service. The next year, YouTube added a music button to the video bar that played samples from “Sandstorm” by Darude. In 2014, YouTube announced that it was responsible for the creation of all viral video trends, and revealed previews of upcoming trends, such as “Clocking”, “Kissing Dad”, and “Glub Glub Water Dance”. In 2008, all links to videos on the main page were redirected to Rick Astley’s music video “Never Gonna Give You Up”, a prank known as “rickrolling”.
In 2020, Roku removed the YouTube TV app from its streaming store after the two companies were unable to reach an agreement. After a 2018 complaint alleging violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the company was fined $170 million by the FTC for collecting personal information from minors under the age of 13. In response to EU officials requesting that such services reduce bandwidth to make sure medical entities had sufficient bandwidth to share information, YouTube and Netflix said they would reduce streaming quality for at least thirty days as to cut bandwidth use of their services by 25% to comply with the EU’s request.
The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra selected their membership based on individual video performances. Under YouTube’s changes to its recommendation engine, the most-recommended channel evolved from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (2016) to Fox News (2019). Senate introduced a resolution condemning Joseph Kony 16 days after the “Kony 2012” video was posted to YouTube, with resolution co-sponsor Senator Lindsey Graham remarking that the video “will do more to lead to (Kony’s) demise than all other action combined.” YouTube has enabled people to more directly engage with government, such as in the CNN/YouTube presidential debates (2007) in which ordinary people submitted questions to U.S. presidential candidates via YouTube video, with a techPresident co-founder saying that Internet video was changing the political landscape.
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In March 2007, it struck a deal with the BBC for three channels with BBC content, one for news and two for entertainment. The vast majority of videos on YouTube are free to view and supported by advertising. In May 2018, after London Metropolitan Police claimed that drill music videos glamorizing violence gave rise to gang violence, YouTube deleted 30 videos. It also found more “mainstream-adjacent Conservative creators” gaining over alt-right and extremist videos by 2020. Journalist Virginia Heffernan stated in The New York Times that such videos have “surprising implications” for the dissemination of culture and even the future of classical music.
The study also concluded that YouTube was becoming an important platform by which people acquire news. A Pew Research Center study reported the development of “visual journalism”, in which avalon78 casino citizen eyewitnesses and established news organizations share in content creation. By early 2013, Billboard had announced that it was factoring YouTube streaming data into calculation of the Billboard Hot 100 and related genre charts. Videos of the 2.5% of artists categorized as “mega”, “mainstream” and “mid-sized” received 90.3% of the relevant views on YouTube and Vevo in that year. Indie creators have built grassroots followings numbering in the thousands at very little cost or effort, while mass retail and radio promotion proved problematic. As of 2018update, public access to YouTube is blocked by China, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan mostly due to freedom of speech laws.
