YouTube is reportedly planning to cut down recommendations for Hindi language videos containing borderline content of any sort. The platform may tweak its system to particularly reduce the recommendations for videos that may contain conspiracy theories and fake news. The company’s latest move will come particularly for India as fake news continues.
YouTube had first initiated the move for English language content. Several videos promoting and featuring conspiracy theories such as “NASA never landed on moon”, remedies for various chronic illnesses, etc. had begun surfacing and grow popular on the platform
Even amidst the pandemic, fake news and misleading content has been a cause of concern for healthcare agencies and social media giants. Earlier following incidents of setting ablaze 5G cellular towers in the UK, YouTube had also taken down videos linking coronavirus outbreak with 5G.
However, the issue of fake news and misleading content has also grown prevalent in the Non-English speaking communities. Misleading videos with various bizarre conspiracy theories or posing a serious risk are widely reported in several countries including Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Spain, India and France.
The company has claimed that it removed more than 8 lakh videos found to be violating its community guidelines in India alone within the first quarter of the year. Notably, YouTube had also updated its policies in 2019 in an attempt to limit hate speech violations on the platform attacking particular castes in the country. YouTube’s recent announcements are likely to further make it a ‘cleaner video platform.
NDTV has reported that Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer at YouTube has said “YouTube had already started reducing recommendations of borderline content in English and was planning to launch its Hindi support this quarter.”
YouTube would be adding Hindi support to its system mechanism which will enable it to reduce the visibility and platform suggestions for the borderline content. The recent move and change in its mechanism has been planned specifically for the India market.
He has further added in his statements that one of his goals for the platform is to continue to expand and deepen its language coverage for all the company’s users around the world. He specifically noted that the company is working closely with various Indian organisations to ensure its content policies and guidelines can reflect the specific conditions in India.
He also added that the platform is also trying to ensure that the team can quickly act on content violating the guidelines. Hopefully, YouTube’s recent announcements will help make it a ‘cleaner video platform’.
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