Many YouTube videos have catchy and exaggerated titles and thumbnails, such as “breaking news” or “the president has resigned,” with the goal of attracting users’ attention and forcing them to watch videos with unrelated content.
YouTube announced on Wednesday that it will start dealing with such videos from now on; Especially in instances where the videos are about topics like breaking news or current events. YouTube will start this action from India. The US giant also hinted that it will introduce stricter rules in the coming months to deal with misleading headlines and unrealistic images.
This action will include the removal of videos with deceptive titles and thumbnails, without issuing a strike or warning against the producers of these videos. Last year, YouTube launched a program that allowed producers to participate in training courses and avoid receiving warnings against their channel.
In a post on the Google India blog, YouTube said, “We are stepping up our efforts to combat misleading and exaggerated titles on YouTube. This means that we intend to increase our enforcement actions against videos whose titles or images make a promise to the viewer that the content cannot fulfill.”
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The company added: “This can make the audience feel cheated and disappointed and even misguided; “Especially when they turn to YouTube to find important or timely information.”
It’s not yet clear how YouTube plans to categorize news or current events. For example, does it consider only political and governmental developments as breaking news, or do sporting events also fall into this category? The company also did not provide detailed information on how to distinguish between deceptive images and headlines and the actual content of videos.
