Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, has revealed her five priorities for creators this year on YouTube’s Creator Blog.
The post, titled Five Priorities for Creators in 2018, outlines the different areas of YouTube she wants to bring to the forefront. These include prioritising transparency and communication, supporting creator success, giving audiences more ways to engage with videos, tightening and enforcing the platform’s policies, and investing more in learning and education.
In the past year, there has been increasing unrest from creators about the direction the platform is going in. This has been driven primarily by demonetisation of videos, the “Adpocalypse”, and changes to the YouTube Partnership Programme, as well as a lack of communication from YouTube.
Creators have also flagged issues with machine learning techniques that many feel restrict or demonetise content at random. Susan addresses this by reaffirming YouTube’s plans to increase human involvement in this process, bringing the overall number of moderation staff “working to address content that might violate our policies to over 10,000”.
This move will also help with tightening and enforcing policies on the platform. Acknowledging that there is often misleading and sometimes harmful content posted on YouTube, Susan expresses her hope that an increase in human involvement will achieve a safer and more responsible environment.
This includes “developing policies that would lead to consequences if a creator does something egregious that causes significant harm”. She also outlines the work YouTube do with the Anti-Defamation League and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US.
Revealing her own passion for education, Susan also writes about the diverse nature of educational content on YouTube and how she wants to increase investment in it.
“As YouTube grows, I want to remain focused on our mission to give everyone a voice and show them the world,” she states. “It’s my commitment in 2018 to ensure we do this responsibly, with greater openness, smarter policies, more engaging products, more revenue for creators, and a higher emphasis on learning and education.”
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