YouTube Wikipedia
Some YouTube videos have themselves had a direct effect on world events, such as Innocence of Muslims (2012) which spurred protests and related anti-American violence internationally. Whereas YouTube’s inherent ability to allow presidents to directly connect with average citizens was noted, the YouTube content creators’ new media savvy was perceived necessary to better cope with the website’s distracting content and fickle audience. President Obama held a meeting at the White House with leading YouTube content creators not only to promote awareness of Obamacare but more generally to develop ways for government to better connect with the “YouTube Generation”. Concurrently, old media celebrities moved into the website at the invitation of a YouTube management that witnessed early content creators accruing substantial followings and perceived audience sizes potentially larger than that attainable by television. As of 2018, public access to YouTube was blocked by countries including China, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan.
Most content is generated by individuals, including collaborations between YouTubers and corporate sponsors. From Q to Q3 2024, YouTube’s combined revenue from advertising and subscriptions exceeded $50 billion. In 2023, YouTube’s advertising revenue totaled $31.7 billion, a 2% increase from the $31.1 billion reported in 2022. Google expanded YouTube’s business model from generating revenue through advertisements alone to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content explicitly produced for YouTube.
- YouTube Premium (formerly Music Key and YouTube Red) is YouTube’s premium subscription service.
- In March 2017, the government of the United Kingdom pulled its advertising campaigns from YouTube, after reports that its ads had appeared on videos containing extremist content.
- Any successful complaint about copyright infringement results in a YouTube copyright strike.
- The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports.
- 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 December 2024, YouTube added the functionality of automatic language dubbing, which uses AI to produce translations of videos into different languages.
- Google Play Movies & TV formally shut down on January 17, 2024, with the web version of that platform migrated to YouTube as an expansion of the Movies & TV store to desktop users.
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Access to specific videos is sometimes prevented due to copyright and intellectual property protection laws (e.g. in Germany), violations of hate speech, and preventing access to videos judged inappropriate for youth, which is also done by YouTube with the YouTube Kids app and with “restricted mode”. It was distinct from the company’s main Android app and allowed videos to be downloaded and shared with other users. On October 28, 2015, the service was relaunched as YouTube Red, offering ad-free streaming of all videos and access to exclusive original content. By 2019, creators were having videos taken down or demonetized when Content ID identified even short segments of copyrighted music within a much longer video, with different levels of enforcement depending on the record label. As part of YouTube Music, Universal and YouTube signed an agreement in 2017, which was followed by separate agreements other major labels, which gave the company the right to advertising revenue when its music was played on YouTube.
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In 2021, two accounts linked to RT DE, the German channel of the Russian state-owned RT network, were removed for breaching YouTube’s policies relating to COVID-19. Should the uploader want to monetize the video again, they may remove the disputed audio in the “Video Manager”. Google CEO Eric Schmidt regarded this system as necessary for resolving lawsuits such as the one from Viacom, which alleged that YouTube profited from content that it did not have the right to distribute.
In cases where the entire site is banned due to one particular video, YouTube will often agree to remove or limit access to that video in order to restore service. YouTube, a video sharing platform, has faced various criticisms over the years, particularly regarding content moderation, offensive content, and monetization. YouTube VR allows for access to all YouTube-hosted videos, but particularly supports headset access for 360° and 180°-degree video (both in 2D and stereoscopic 3D).
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- From Q to Q3 2024, YouTube’s combined revenue from advertising and subscriptions exceeded $50 billion.
- YouTube released a mobile app known as YouTube Kids in 2015, which was designed to provide an experience optimized for children.
- Established media, news, and entertainment corporations have also created and expanded their visibility to YouTube channels to reach bigger audiences.
- 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.
- In the 2011 case of Smith v. Summit Entertainment LLC, professional singer Matt Smith sued Summit Entertainment for the wrongful use of copyright takedown notices on YouTube.
- On September 23, 2025, YouTube parent company Alphabet announced that it would reinstate creators that were banned for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Since April 2016, videos continue to be monetized while the dispute is in progress, and the money goes to whoever won the dispute. The use of Content ID to remove material automatically has led to controversy in some cases, as the videos have not been checked by a human for fair use. When this occurs, the content owner has the choice of blocking the video to make it unviewable, tracking the viewing statistics of the video, or adding advertisements to the video.citation needed When a video is uploaded, it is checked against the database, and flags the video as a copyright violation if a match is found. 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. In April 2013, it was reported that Universal Music Group and YouTube have a contractual agreement that prevents content blocked on YouTube by a request from UMG from being restored, even if the uploader of the video files a DMCA counter-notice.
In September 2022, YouTube TV began allowing customers to purchase most of its premium add-ons (excluding certain services such as NBA League Pass and AMC+) without an existing subscription to its base package. Discovery (including among others Bravo, USA Network, Syfy, Disney Channel, CNN, Cartoon Network, avalon78 casino E!, Fox Sports 1, Freeform, FX and ESPN). Other functions of Google Play Movies & TV were integrated into the Google TV service. First released on February 15, 2015, as an Android and iOS mobile app, the app has since been released for LG, Samsung, and Sony smart TVs, as well as for Android TV.
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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See what the world is watching — from the hottest music videos to what’s popular in gaming, fashion, beauty, news, learning and more. In February 2015, Nintendo agreed to share the revenue with the video creators through the Nintendo Creators Program. In 2010, it was reported that nearly a third of the videos with advertisements were uploaded without permission of the copyright holders. A YouTube spokesperson stated that while the policy itself was not new, the service had “improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication to our creators”.
On April 6, 2017, YouTube announced that to “ensure revenue only flows to creators who are playing by the rules”, it would change its practices to require that a channel undergo a policy compliance review, and have at least 10,000-lifetime views, before they may join the YouTube Partner Program. Like TikTok, it gives users access to built-in creative tools, including the possibility of adding licensed music to their videos. The service continued to evolve in 2015 when YouTube announced YouTube Red, a new premium service that would offer ad-free access to all content on the platform (succeeding the Music Key service released the previous year), premium original series, and films produced by YouTube personalities, as well as background playback of content on mobile devices. In May 2013, Nintendo began enforcing its copyright ownership and claiming the advertising revenue from video creators who posted screenshots of its games.
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.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when most of the world was under stay-at-home orders, usage of services like YouTube significantly increased. YouTube released a mobile app known as YouTube Kids in 2015, which was designed to provide an experience optimized for children. These channel subscriptions complemented the existing Super Chat ability, launched in 2017, which allows viewers to donate between $1 and $500 to have their comment highlighted.
This effort was discontinued in January 2018 and relaunched in June, with US$4.99 channel subscriptions. Through this period, YouTube tried several new ways to generate revenue beyond advertisements. The lawsuit was filed due to alleged copyright infringement of Viacom’s material by YouTube.
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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.
In December 2012, two billion views were removed from the view counts of Universal and Sony music videos on YouTube, prompting a claim by The Daily Dot that the views had been deleted due to a violation of the site’s terms of service, which ban the use of automated processes to inflate view counts. The platform aims to penalize creators using misleading or sensationalized titles, with potential actions including video removal or channel suspension. The site grew rapidly; in July 2006, the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. As of May 2019update, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of mid-2024update, there were approximately 14.8 billion videos in total.
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.
By 2010, the company had reached a market share of around 43% and more than 14 billion views of videos, according to comScore. Despite its growth and success, the platform has been criticized for its facilitation of the spread of misinformation and copyrighted content, routinely violating its users’ privacy, excessive censorship, endangering the safety of children and their well-being, and for its inconsistent implementation of platform guidelines. YouTube incorporated the Google AdSense program, generating more revenue for both YouTube and approved content creators. You can find and download apps and digital content in the Google Play app . You can install apps, games, and digital content on your device from the Google Play Store.