News viewership on YouTube has over the past few weeks soared 75 percent from a year earlier, as millions of people turn to the video Web site for updates on the COVID-19 pandemic, chief product officer Neal Mohan told Bloomberg Television.
YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc’s Google, reaches more than 2 billion viewers per month and has had a significant traffic surge since the pandemic took hold.
One of the largest upswings has been in the viewing of videos that the company classifies as “news,” Mohan said.
“People are trying to consume as much information around this crisis. It’s top of mind for everybody,” he added.
The world’s largest online video hub ranks news and medical videos according to their “authoritativeness,” using a mixture of automation and human evaluators, although it does not share those ranking scores publicly.
On videos that mention the coronavirus, YouTube began running an information panel linking to health agencies, which Mohan said has been viewed more than 10 billion times.
YouTube also added a tab on its home page to feature news videos about COVID-19.
As the virus spread, YouTube also had to confront misleading and outright false videos, a persistent problem for the site.
It has so far removed “thousands” of videos for breaking site rules on disinformation related to the virus.
“We’re remaining as vigilant as possible,” Mohan said, adding that the new policies would remain in place after the pandemic subsides.
Despite the jump in viewing, YouTube, like other big online platforms, has seen a drop in advertising spending as many of its marketing clients slash budgets.
Mohan declined to discuss changes in sales.
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