In her latest letter, Susan Wojcicki addressed concerns around copyright claims and disabling comments on videos featuring minors.
The post, published on YouTube’s Creator Blog, comes after the platform deactivated comments “on tens of millions of videos” featuring young children in February.
The decision followed reports of a “soft-core paedophile ring” in comments sections of videos on the site.
In the article published on Tuesday, Susan said: “We did this to protect children from predatory comments, with the exception of a small number of channels that have the manpower needed to actively moderate their comments and take additional steps to protect children.”
Family vlogger Jessica Ballinger was amongst those who criticised the policy on Twitter, describing it as “wrong”.
“And creators shouldn’t be penalized for other people’s comments. The comments should be removed and that user should be banned,” she said.
I DARE YOU to finder a cleaner, kinder comments section on all of YouTube. This is WRONG.
And creators shouldn’t be penalized for other people’s comments. The comments should be removed and that user should be banned. https://t.co/vWOZ75s4ED
— Jessica Ballinger 🤰🏼 (@BallingerMom) February 22, 2019
Responding to concerns, Susan said YouTube knows “how vital comments are to creators”.
“I hear from creators every day how meaningful comments are for engaging with fans, getting feedback, and helping guide future videos.
“I also know this change impacted so many creators who we know are innocent—from professional creators to young people or their parents who are posting videos.
“But in the end, that was a trade-off we made because we feel protecting children on our platform should be the most important guiding principle.”
The letter later went on to address issues around copyright claims, following the YouTube CEO’s discussions with creators such as Shane Dawson, James Charles and Ethan and Hila Klein.
In her letter, Susan said creators were “frustrated with copyright claims that are less than 10 seconds or incidental”, with the platform’s manual claiming system being used to claim videos where only a few seconds of music is played.
“We were already looking into this issue but hearing this directly from creators was vital. We are exploring improvements in striking the right balance between copyright owners and creators,” she said.
The YouTube boss also confirmed a goal to have at least 50% of videos on the Trending tab come from creators, with the other half coming from music channels and traditional media.
Susan also went on to add that the platform would work to make sure this is “a diverse set of creators”, and announced that their Creator on the Rise initiatives will continue to be ramped up in the future.
Want more?
Find out more about Pewdiepie’s videos being banned in India. Alternatively, learn more about this year’s Buffer Festival.
For updates follow @TenEightyUK on Twitter or Like TenEighty UK on Facebook.
