Posts Tagged: update
Samsung Galaxy M20 and M30 get an update to Android 10 with One UI 2.0
The Galaxy S11 is on the horizon, which means it’s time for Samsung to start trickling their latest software into their current phone lineup to test things out before the big show. The latest in the enormous Galaxy family to receive Android 10 with One UI 2.0 is the Galaxy M20 and M30, which are […]
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An update to our harassment policy
Over the last several years we have worked to improve the way we manage content on YouTube by quickly removing it when it violates our Community Guidelines, reducing the spread of borderline content, raising up authoritative voices when people are looking for breaking news and information and rewarding trusted creators and artists that make YouTube a special place. Today we are announcing a series of policy and product changes that update how we tackle harassment on YouTube. We systematically review all our policies to make sure the line between what we remove and what we allow is drawn in the right place, and recognized earlier this year that for harassment, there is more we can do to protect our creators and community.
Harassment hurts our community by making people less inclined to share their opinions and engage with each other. We heard this time and again from creators, including those who met with us during the development of this policy update. We also met with a number of experts who shared their perspective and informed our process, from organizations that study online bullying or advocate on behalf of journalists, to free speech proponents and policy organizations from all sides of the political spectrum.
We remain committed to our openness as a platform and to ensuring that spirited debate and a vigorous exchange of ideas continue to thrive here. However, we will not tolerate harassment and we believe the steps outlined below will contribute to our mission by making YouTube a better place for anyone to share their story or opinion.
A stronger stance against threats and personal attacks
We’ve always removed videos that explicitly threaten someone, reveal confidential personal information, or encourage people to harass someone else. Moving forward, our policies will go a step further and not only prohibit explicit threats, but also veiled or implied threats. This includes content simulating violence toward an individual or language suggesting physical violence may occur. No individual should be subject to harassment that suggests violence.
Beyond threatening someone, there is also demeaning language that goes too far. To establish a consistent criteria for what type of content is not allowed on YouTube, we’re building upon the framework we use for our hate speech policy. We will no longer allow content that maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes such as their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation. This applies to everyone, from private individuals, to YouTube creators, to public officials.
Consequences for a pattern of harassing behavior
Something we heard from our creators is that harassment sometimes takes the shape of a pattern of repeated behavior across multiple videos or comments, even if any individual video doesn’t cross our policy line. To address this, we’re tightening our policies for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to get even tougher on those who engage in harassing behavior and to ensure we reward only trusted creators. Channels that repeatedly brush up against our harassment policy will be suspended from YPP, eliminating their ability to make money on YouTube. We may also remove content from channels if they repeatedly harass someone. If this behavior continues, we’ll take more severe action including issuing strikes or terminating a channel altogether.
Addressing toxic comments
We know that the comment section is an important place for fans to engage with creators and each other. At the same time, we heard feedback that comments are often where creators and viewers encounter harassment. This behavior not only impacts the person targeted by the harassment, but can also have a chilling effect on the entire conversation.
To combat this we remove comments that clearly violate our policies – over 16 million in the third quarter of this year, specifically due to harassment.The policy updates we’ve outlined above will also apply to comments, so we expect this number to increase in future quarters.
Beyond comments that we remove, we also empower creators to further shape the conversation on their channels and have a variety of tools that help. When we’re not sure a comment violates our policies, but it seems potentially inappropriate, we give creators the option to review it before it’s posted on their channel. Results among early adopters were promising – channels that enabled the feature saw a 75% reduction in user flags on comments. Earlier this year, we began to turn this setting on by default for most creators.
We’ve continued to fine tune our systems to make sure we catch truly toxic comments, not just anything that’s negative or critical, and feedback from creators has been positive. Last week we began turning this feature on by default for YouTube’s largest channels with the site’s most active comment sections and will roll out to most channels by the end of the year. To be clear, creators can opt-out, and if they choose to leave the feature enabled they still have ultimate control over which held comments can appear on their videos. Alternatively, creators can also ignore held comments altogether if they prefer.
All of these updates represent another step towards making sure we protect the YouTube community. We expect there will continue to be healthy debates over some of the decisions and we have an appeals process in place if creators believe we’ve made the wrong call on a video.
As we make these changes, it’s vitally important that YouTube remain a place where people can express a broad range of ideas, and we’ll continue to protect discussion on matters of public interest and artistic expression. We also believe these discussions can be had in ways that invite participation, and never make someone fear for their safety. We’re committed to continue revisiting our policies regularly to ensure that they are preserving the magic of YouTube, while also living up to the expectations of our community.
— Matt Halprin, Vice President, Global Head of Trust & Safety
Samsung does it again with December security update rolling out before Google
Samsung has been acing their security update support in recent years and they’ve now begun rolling out the new December security update to some phones before even Google, again. Samsung has been steadily improving their update game over the last few years, with the delay between Google’s releases and Samsung’s updates shrinking from over half […]
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‘No Man’s Sky Synthesis’ update allows you to upgrade your favorite ship
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Call of Duty Mobile update adds Zombie mode, controller support, and new maps
I haven’t played CoD since Modern Warfare 2 around a decade ago, but dang it, the mobile game that launched a few weeks ago has got me hooked, bigtime. Call of Duty Mobile is a game that harks back to the best of the CoD franchise, with something for everyone from hard-charging assaulters, campers snipers, […]
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Xbox One update helps you buy the games your friends are playing
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The October 2019 security update will be the end of the road for the OnePlus 3/3T
The OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T were both very solid phones from a few years ago, before OnePlus really starting to hit the mainstream market. They were really some of the first phones to launch OnePlus into a competitive place, and they’ve been receiving security updates ever since. But all good things must come to […]
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Latest update adds casting support to the Files by Google app
It’s always struck me as a little odd that Google hadn’t included Chromecast support in its Files-by-Google app, but now it seems that after a short incubation in the beta channel, the feature is rolling out to stable users via an update in the Play Store. This means that you’ll be able to cast your […]
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The Pixel 4 November update modifies the behavior of the 90Hz display
One of the selling points of the new Pixel 4 models is the screen’s 90Hz refresh rate, which provides a faster, smoother experience. Gaming, in particular, really benefits. It’s not an “always on” feature, however, and drops to 60Hz often to preserve battery life. Screen brightness plays a role and it’s been shown that the […]
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LG announces Korean update schedule including imminent Android 10 for G8 and V50
LG is infamous for their slow Android updates even as the competition has improved, though their newly announced update plans include decent timeframes for their newest flagships in South Korea. LG is amongst the worst smartphone companies when it comes to supporting their devices’ software with Android security updates and OS upgrades, and they’re pretty-well […]
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Roomba update tells your robovacs to steer clear of trouble spots
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OnePlus already pushed out their first update for the OnePlus 7T
OnePlus announced the OnePlus 7T last week, so you wouldn’t think there would be much need for an early software update. But just a few days in and here we are, with Oxygen OS 10.0.3 officially rolling out for the brand new device. It’s not a massive update, mind you; this one’s pretty small with […]
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An update on kids and data protection on YouTube
New data practices for children’s content on YouTube
We are changing how we treat data for children’s content on YouTube. Starting in about four months, we will treat data from anyone watching children’s content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user. This means that we will limit data collection and use on videos made for kids only to what is needed to support the operation of the service. We will also stop serving personalized ads on this content entirely, and some features will no longer be available on this type of content, like comments and notifications. In order to identify content made for kids, creators will be required to tell us when their content falls in this category, and we’ll also use machine learning to find videos that clearly target young audiences, for example those that have an emphasis on kids characters, themes, toys, or games.
Improvements to YouTube Kids
We continue to recommend parents use YouTube Kids if they plan to allow kids under 13 to watch independently. Tens of millions of people use YouTube Kids every week but we want even more parents to be aware of the app and its benefits. We’re increasing our investments in promoting YouTube Kids to parents with a campaign that will run across YouTube. We’re also continuing to improve the product. For example, we recently raised the bar for which channels can be a part of YouTube Kids, drastically reducing the number of channels on the app. And we’re bringing the YouTube Kids experience to the desktop.
Investing in family creators
We know these changes will have a significant business impact on family and kids creators who have been building both wonderful content and thriving businesses, so we’ve worked to give impacted creators four months to adjust before changes take effect on YouTube. We recognize this won’t be easy for some creators and are committed to working with them through this transition and providing resources to help them better understand these changes.
We are also going to continue investing in the future of quality kids, family and educational content. We are establishing a $ 100 million fund, disbursed over three years, dedicated to the creation of thoughtful, original children’s content on YouTube and YouTube Kids globally.
Training our teams
Championing the protections we have in place for children is a shared responsibility across the company. To that end, we are introducing new, mandatory annual training for our teams about our requirements in this area.
Today’s changes will allow us to better protect kids and families on YouTube, and this is just the beginning. We’ll continue working with lawmakers around the world in this area, including as the FTC seeks comments on COPPA. And in the coming months, we’ll share details on how we’re rethinking our overall approach to kids and families, including a dedicated kids experience on YouTube. I have the privilege of working alongside parents who deeply care about protecting kids. We know how important it is to provide children, families and family creators the best experience possible on YouTube and we are committed to getting it right.
Susan Wojcicki
Reddit update brings support for Android Q’s automatic dark mode toggle
Dark mode in Android apps is getting more and more popular, and that’s only expected to grow with Android Q’s system-wide dark theme and automatic toggles. Google’s been hard at work blacking out their own first-party apps, and now more third-parties are updating to take advantage of some new Android features, too. Take Reddit, for […]
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Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism: An update on our progress
In summer 2017, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft and Twitter came together to form the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT).
The objective of the GIFCT has always been to substantially disrupt terrorists’ ability to promote terrorism, disseminate violent extremist propaganda, and exploit or glorify real-world acts of violence on our services. We do this by joining forces with counterterrorism experts in government, civil society and the wider industry around the world. Our work centers around three, interrelated strategies:
- Joint tech innovation
- Knowledge sharing
- Conducting and funding research
Today, building on the commitments we made as part of the Christchurch Call to Action, we are adding a fourth pillar to our work that will focus on crisis response. Specifically, we are introducing joint content incident protocols for responding to emerging or active events, such as the horrific terrorist attack in Christchurch, so that relevant information can be quickly and efficiently shared, processed and acted upon by all member companies. We are also releasing our first GIFCT Transparency Report and a new counterspeech campaign toolkit that will help activists and civil society organizations challenge the voices of extremism online.
And as we head into our third year as GIFCT, we are pleased to welcome Pinterest and Dropbox as members. We will continue to add new members, particularly smaller companies, that could benefit from the collective experience of GIFCT members.
More than 200,000 unique hashes now in our joint database
When terrorists misuse the internet, they often upload the same piece of content to multiple platforms to maximize their reach. To disrupt this behavior, we jointly developed a shared industry database of “hashes” — or digital fingerprints — that allows us to safely share known terrorist images and video propaganda with partner companies. This enables us to more quickly identify and take action against potential terrorist content on our respective platforms.
The shared database predates the creation of GIFCT, but over the last couple years, we have significantly increased the volume of hashes within the database. In 2018, for example, we set and achieved our goal of reaching 100,000 unique hashes. And in the first six months of this year, we’ve already doubled that number, and we now have more than 200,000 unique hashes in the database.
As we take steps to deliver on the four collaborative actions set forth in the Christchurch Call to Action, we’re expanding the shared industry database so that it extends beyond photos and videos to include URLs that lead to known terrorist and violent extremist content online.
First GIFCT Transparency Report
We have heard, loud and clear, from government and civil society that we need to be more transparent about what we are working on as an industry. As a result, today we are releasing our first-ever GIFCT Transparency Report. The report goes into detail about the GIFCT’s primary work streams, providing greater insight into how the Hash Sharing Consortium has defined terrorist content, and the volume and types of content included in the database. The full transparency report, which is available here, will complement the transparency reports put out by individual GIFCT member companies.
A toolkit to counter violent extremism
When we committed to the Christchurch Call to Action and issued a nine-point plan outlining concrete steps we plan to take as an industry, we said, “We come together, resolute in our commitment to ensure we are doing all we can to fight the hatred and extremism that lead to terrorist violence.” Never has that commitment been more important. As industry partners, we continue to prioritize and deepen engagement with governments, civil society and smaller tech companies around the world.
In partnership with Tech Against Terrorism, we’ve held 11 workshops in nine countries on four continents. We’ve met with 120 different tech and innovation platforms, and we have provided funding to secure Jihadology.net to make sure that researchers studying terrorism can still access primary research material while ensuring that terrorists and people vulnerable to recruitment cannot.
Today, we are also rolling out a cross-platform counter-violent extremist toolkit that we jointly developed with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The toolkit will assist civil society organizations in developing online campaigns to challenge extremist ideologies, while prioritizing their safety. We know that the technology industry isn’t the best or most appropriate messenger when it comes to pushing back on violent extremists, which is why it’s so important to support civil society organizations that have the credibility and knowledge to combat, respond and counter the promotion of violent extremism online.
Enabling and empowering companies to respond to crises like Christchurch
Perhaps most importantly, today we are adding a fourth pillar to the GIFCT’s core mission: enabling and empowering companies to respond to crises like Christchurch. The horrific terrorist attack highlighted the importance of close communication between members, and between government and the wider industry, which is why we are introducing joint content incident protocols to enable and empower companies to more quickly and effectively respond to emerging and active events.
The protocol, which can be triggered by a real-world event involving murder or attempted murder of defenseless civilians or innocents, outlines steps that tech companies can take to respond quickly to an attack. Based on the joint protocols, we will work together to categorize the type of incident and the anticipated level and degree of online impact. We will also set up formal channels of communication so we can share intelligence and content with non-GIFCT companies and other stakeholders, as needed.
Terrorism and violent extremism are complex problems that require a joint response from industry, governments and wider society. We believe that by working together, sharing the best technological and operational elements of our individual efforts, we can have a significantly greater impact on the threat of terrorist content online than we can alone.
We are grateful for the support of and collaboration with governments, international organizations and NGOs around the world, including the EU Internet Forum and the UN Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate. We look forward to sharing more updates in the coming months.
— The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism
Original Razer Phone is due for an Android Pie update in a few weeks
When Razer announced the original Razer Phone, it was up in the air how well they’d do with software updates. Razer isn’t a phone company, and their purchase of Nextbit was the only thing that really got them into the market. Up to this point, those software updates have been pretty lackluster, with the original […]
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Korg’s Minilogue and Monologue synths are getting a major update
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An update on our efforts to protect minors and families
Responsibility is our number one priority, and chief among our areas of focus is protecting minors and families. Over the years, we’ve heavily invested in a number of technologies and efforts to protect young people on our platform, such as our CSAI Match technology. And in 2015, because YouTube has never been for kids under 13, we created YouTube Kids as a way for kids to be able to safely explore their interests and for parents to have more control. Accounts belonging to people under 13 are terminated when discovered. In fact, we terminate thousands of accounts per week as part of this process.
We also enforce a strong set of policies to protect minors on our platform, including those that prohibit exploiting minors, encouraging dangerous or inappropriate behaviors, and aggregating videos of minors in potentially exploitative ways. In the first quarter of 2019 alone, we removed more than 800,000 videos for violations of our child safety policies, the majority of these before they had ten views.
The vast majority of videos featuring minors on YouTube, including those referenced in recent news reports, do not violate our policies and are innocently posted — a family creator providing educational tips, or a parent sharing a proud moment. But when it comes to kids, we take an extra cautious approach towards our enforcement and we’re always making improvements to our protections. Here are a few updates we’ve made over the past several months:
- Restricting live features: We updated enforcement of our live streaming policy to specifically disallow younger minors from live streaming unless they are clearly accompanied by an adult. Channels not in compliance with this policy may lose their ability to live stream. We also launched new classifiers (machine learning tools that help us identify specific types of content) on our live products to find and remove more of this content.
- Disabling comments on videos featuring minors: We disabled comments on tens of millions of videos featuring minors across the platform, to limit the risk of exploitation. Additionally, we implemented a classifier that helped us remove 2x the number of violative comments. We recognize that comments are a core part of the YouTube experience and creators have told us they feel we removed a valuable way for them to connect with and grow audiences. But we strongly believe this is an important step to keeping young people safe on YouTube.
- Reducing recommendations: We expanded our efforts from earlier this year around limiting recommendations of borderline content to include videos featuring minors in risky situations. While the content itself does not violate our policies, we recognize the minors could be at risk of online or offline exploitation. We’ve already applied these changes to tens of millions of videos across YouTube.
Over the last 2+ years, we’ve been making regular improvements to the machine learning classifier that helps us protect minors and families. We rolled out our most recent improvement earlier this month. With this update, we’ll be able to better identify videos that may put minors at risk and apply our protections, including those described above, across even more videos.
To stay informed of the latest research and advances in child safety, we work with civil society and law enforcement. In the last two years, we’ve shared tens of thousands of reports with NCMEC, leading to numerous law enforcement investigations.1 Additionally, we share our technologies and expertise with the industry, and consult with outside experts to complement our team of in-house experts.
YouTube is a company made up of parents and families, and we’ll always do everything we can to prevent any use of our platform that attempts to exploit or endanger minors. Kids and families deserve the best protection we have to offer: We’re committed to investing in the teams and technology to make sure they get it.
—The YouTube Team
1 Updated stats on June 3
Samsung’s older watches get One UI update, including Galaxy Watch, Gear S3, and Gear Sport
When Samsung announced the Galaxy Watch Active this year, it came with their “mobile” version of One UI, the newer, sleeker software that was found on Samsung handsets running Android 9.0 Pie. It includes a few new features and an easier to navigate interface, but we were all really hoping to see it back ported […]
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Botched update crashes hundreds of Netherlands police ankle monitors
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GBoard update featuring UI improvements and clipboard available
After some details were found in an APK teardown last month, the update bringing significant UI tweaks and the new clipboard manager is rolling out to beta testers. Google originally announced GBoard‘s forthcoming clipboard support months ago, and hidden functionality was found in the 7.7 release, and in the 8.0 beta. Finally though, the fully […]
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Microsoft Excel adds photo-to-spreadsheet feature with latest update
Microsoft Excel for Android has been updated with a nifty new feature that was originally teased at a conference last year. If you’re in a rush and need to turn a photo or image into a spreadsheet that you can actually edit, this is now your go-to app. The update uses image recognition and AI […]
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Chrome OS update expands Google Assistant and Android Pie support
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Android Pie stable update starts to roll out to Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9
Just days ago another One UI beta update hit Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9, and apparently the company was immediately very happy with the state of the software. Now the finalized, stable version of Android Pie has started to roll out to the Note 9 in a few countries around the world, which should kick open […]
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Moto G6 Plus finally receives its Android Pie 9.0 update
One of the draws of Motorola‘s G-series only a few years ago was its nearly-stock Android system and fast updates – almost like a proto-Android-One setup. However, ever since Google sold Motorola to Lenovo in 2014 and was relegated to merely a brand, the classic phone manufacturer’s devices have disappointingly gone from being amongst the first […]
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OnePlus drops the Android Pie 9.0 update for the OnePlus 5 and 5T
Haven’t been impressed by the notches on the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T? Well, there’s good news for anyone hanging on to the OnePlus 5 or OnePlus 5T; OnePlus is officially rolling out Android Pie to those devices. The update includes OxygenOS 9.0, so you’re also getting some OnePlus goodness on top of everything that […]
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First ‘State of Decay 2’ content update adds stealthy crossbows
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The last of the Nexus phones receive their final update
The Nexus 6P and budget-friendly 5X launched in 2015 with a three-year update guarantee from Google. This included two years of major software upgrades and three years of security updates. That makes 2018 the last year for Nexus updates as the new Pixel line replaced them in 2016. A spontaneous two-month extension was granted last […]
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Firefox update adds improved tracking protection
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Google releases Wear OS 2.1 update that focuses on swiping and gestures
Google has released an incremental update for their newly rebranded Wear OS, and this time they’re focusing on making the interface more swipe and gesture friendly. It’s a small change, but also one that should hopefully make Wear OS a more compelling options for users and partners. It would also probably help if Google would […]
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NVIDIA Shield TV update 7.1 brings voice chat, mouse and keyboard support, and a companion app
NVIDIA has announced their 20th software update to the Shield TV, and it’s a pretty big incremental update hot on the heels of the latest 7.0 update.There’s plenty to talk about here, including a bunch of features to make the Shield TV a better primary gaming console, plus a few quality of life changes for […]
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New Snapchat update for Android teases better performance and new features
Snapchat’s Android app is pretty universally hated for poor performance and the occasional lack of features next to its iOS counterpart, and it’s been that way since it first launched. Snapchat has teased nebulous “improvements” for a while now, but so far we haven’t actually see anything worth mentioning, besides UI updates that also go […]
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Honor 10 gets GPU Turbo graphics boost and new camera features in latest update
It’s just a month ago since Huawei announced its GPU Turbo technology that promises to boost graphics performance by up to 60% and optimize power consumption while gaming by up to 30%. After a limited beta test, the software update has begun rolling out to the Honor 10 initially with other Huawei and Honor handsets […]
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Incognito mode for YouTube rolling out with latest update
Earlier this year signs surfaced indicating Google was working on an incognito mode for YouTube. As spotted during testing, the new mode was designed to be similar to what Google did with Chrome’s incognito mode in that the app will not retain the watch and search history. With the latest update for YouTube that started […]
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Microsoft Launcher for Android gets a major update with tons of new features
Microsoft has released a pretty major update for the Microsoft Launcher home screen experience onto the Play Store, bringing a ton of new features centered around Microsoft’s apps and services. The update bumps the app to version 4.11 and includes some interface tweaks on top of the new integrated features. Here’s the changelog: What’s new […]
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iOS 11.4.1 update ‘improves’ Find My AirPods feature
It has been almost three months since Apple's last incremental update for various devices like Apple Watch, iPhones and Apple TV. While the upcoming iterations of the company's operating systems (iOS 12, watchOS 5 and macOS Mojave are still in beta,…
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OnePlus shares an update on key actions to take based on what it heard
OnePlus has been working hard to position themselves as a company that values the input of customers. They tend to be one of the more transparent companies in providing updates and soliciting feedback. To that end, today OnePlus posted a summary update regarding their Open Ears Forums held during the first half of 2018. The […]
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OxygenOS update rolling out for OnePlus 5 and 5T
This past weekend OnePlus announced they were rolling out a small but important update the OxygenOS operating system for the OnePlus 5 and the OnePlus 5T smartphones. Although the update is small, it does include an important security update. According to OnePlus, the update brings OxygenOS up to version 5.1.3. The security issue OnePlus addresses […]
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Material Design update for Google Maps is beginning a staged rollout
Google has been slowly redesigning most of their core apps with updated Material Design interfaces, and Google Maps is next up on the list. There have been a few Maps tweaks over the last few months hinting at this coming, and Google I/O more or less confirmed it, but it’s finally happening. The update is […]
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Update to Google News on the web starting to show up
At Google I/O 2018, one of the apps/services that Google mentioned as getting some significant attention is their Google News platform. The improvements mainly come in two different areas – increased use of AI to scour the web for content that may interest a user and a heavy revision to the interface to be consistent […]
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Oreo update for Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge paused amid glitches
Samsung is notoriously slow at rolling out software updates, especially new versions of Android. Following months of beta tests for Android 8.0 Oreo, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ received the final version in February, and the 2016 Galaxy S7 and S7 edge finally started seeing it earlier this month. The latter ground to a halt, unfortunately, […]
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TiVo update will add Amazon’s Alexa to select DVRs
Earlier this year, Tivo announced that it would make its set-top boxes compatible with voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant. According to The Verge, compatibility with Amazon Alexa is now rolling out in an update to these devices…
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Pending Google Home Max update to improve use as a speaker
The Google Home Max enjoys a rather unique spot in the market in that it incorporates the benefits of a smart speaker with sound qualities – including a big sound – that are close enough to more dedicated devices like Sonos speakers. As good as that sound is, the Home Max has fallen short for […]
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Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge could get Android Oreo update in May
New reports out indicate Samsung may be on the verge of rolling out the Android 8.0 Oreo update for their Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones possibly as soon as mid-May. If Samsung and carriers are able to stick to this timeline, then the S7 devices will be getting the update one to […]
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More information, faster removals, more people – an update on what we’re doing to enforce YouTube’s Community Guidelines
In December we shared how we’re expanding our work to remove content that violates our policies. Today, we’re providing an update and giving you additional insight into our work, including the release of the first YouTube Community Guidelines Enforcement Report.
Providing More Information
We are taking an important first step by releasing a quarterly report on how we’re enforcing our Community Guidelines. This regular update will help show the progress we’re making in removing violative content from our platform. By the end of the year, we plan to refine our reporting systems and add additional data, including data on comments, speed of removal, and policy removal reasons.
We’re also introducing a Reporting History dashboard that each YouTube user can individually access to see the status of videos they’ve flagged to us for review against our Community Guidelines.
Machines Helping to Address Violative Content
Machines are allowing us to flag content for review at scale, helping us remove millions of violative videos before they are ever viewed. And our investment in machine learning to help speed up removals is paying off across high-risk, low-volume areas (like violent extremism) and in high-volume areas (like spam).
Highlights from the report — reflecting data from October – December 2017 — show:
- We removed over 8 million videos from YouTube during these months.1 The majority of these 8 million videos were mostly spam or people attempting to upload adult content – and represent a fraction of a percent of YouTube’s total views during this time period.2
- 6.7 million were first flagged for review by machines rather than humans
- Of those 6.7 million videos, 76 percent were removed before they received a single view.
For example, at the beginning of 2017, 8 percent of the videos flagged and removed for violent extremism were taken down with fewer than 10 views.3 We introduced machine learning flagging in June 2017. Now more than half of the videos we remove for violent extremism have fewer than 10 views.
The Value of People + Machines
Deploying machine learning actually means more people reviewing content, not fewer. Our systems rely on human review to assess whether content violates our policies. You can learn more about our flagging and human review process in this video:
Last year we committed to bringing the total number of people working to address violative content to 10,000 across Google by the end of 2018. At YouTube, we’ve staffed the majority of additional roles needed to reach our contribution to meeting that goal. We’ve also hired full-time specialists with expertise in violent extremism, counterterrorism, and human rights, and we’ve expanded regional expert teams.
We continue to invest in the network of over 150 academics, government partners, and NGOs who bring valuable expertise to our enforcement systems, like the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London, Anti-Defamation League, and Family Online Safety Institute. This includes adding more child safety focused partners from around the globe, like Childline South Africa, ECPAT Indonesia, and South Korea’s Parents’ Union on Net.
We are committed to making sure that YouTube remains a vibrant community with strong systems to remove violative content and we look forward to providing you with more information on how those systems are performing and improving over time.
— The YouTube Team
1 This number does not include videos that were removed when an entire channel was removed. Most channel-level removals are due to spam violations and we believe that the percentage of violative content for spam is even higher.
2Not only do these 8 million videos represent a fraction of a percent of YouTube’s overall views, but that fraction of a percent has been steadily decreasing over the last five quarters.
3This excludes videos that were automatically matched as known violent extremist content at point of upload – which would all have zero views.
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Faster removals and tackling comments — an update on what we’re doing to enforce YouTube’s Community Guidelines
We are committed to tackling the challenge of quickly removing content that violates our Community Guidelines and reporting on our progress. That’s why in April we launched a quarterly YouTube Community Guidelines Enforcement Report. As part of this ongoing commitment to transparency, today we’re expanding the report to include additional data like channel removals, the number of comments removed, and the policy reason why a video or channel was removed.
Focus on removing violative content before it is viewed
We previously shared how technology is helping our human review teams remove content with speed and volume that could not be achieved with people alone. Finding all violative content on YouTube is an immense challenge, but we see this as one of our core responsibilities and are focused on continuously working towards removing this content before it is widely viewed.
When we detect a video that violates our Guidelines, we remove the video and apply a strike to the channel. We terminate entire channels if they are dedicated to posting content prohibited by our Community Guidelines or contain a single egregious violation, like child sexual exploitation. The vast majority of attempted abuse comes from bad actors trying to upload spam or adult content: over 90% of the channels and over 80% of the videos that we removed in September 2018 were removed for violating our policies on spam or adult content.
Looking specifically at the most egregious, but low-volume areas, like violent extremism and child safety, our significant investment in fighting this type of content is having an impact: Well over 90% of the videos uploaded in September 2018 and removed for Violent Extremism or Child Safety had fewer than 10 views.
Each quarter we may see these numbers fluctuate, especially when our teams tighten our policies or enforcement on a certain category to remove more content. For example, over the last year we’ve strengthened our child safety enforcement, regularly consulting with experts to make sure our policies capture a broad range of content that may be harmful to children, including things like minors fighting or engaging in potentially dangerous dares. Accordingly, we saw that 10.2% of video removals were for child safety, while Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) represents a fraction of a percent of the content we remove.
Making comments safer
As with videos, we use a combination of smart detection technology and human reviewers to flag, review, and remove spam, hate speech, and other abuse in comments.
We’ve also built tools that allow creators to moderate comments on their videos. For example, creators can choose to hold all comments for review, or to automatically hold comments that have links or may contain offensive content. Over one million creators now use these tools to moderate their channel’s comments.1
We’ve also been increasing our enforcement against violative comments:
We are committed to making sure that YouTube remains a vibrant community, where creativity flourishes, independent creators make their living, and people connect worldwide over shared passions and interests. That means we will be unwavering in our fight against bad actors on our platform and our efforts to remove egregious content before it is viewed. We know there is more work to do and we are continuing to invest in people and technology to remove violative content quickly. We look forward to providing you with more updates.
YouTube Team
1 Creator comment removals on their own channels are not included in our reporting as they are based on opt-in creator tools and not a review by our teams to determine a Community Guidelines violation.
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