YouTube declares war against "egregious clickbait" thumbnails and titles in India

YouTube is going after accounts that try to deceive users into viewing their videos by adding clickbait titles and thumbnails. The company announced that it is strengthening its efforts to fight against "egregious clickbait" on the platform in India.

The Google-owned company said it will take action against videos where the thumbnail or title can't deliver the promises made to the user, more importantly, when the video focuses on current events or breaking news.

For example, an egregious clickbait might sound like “the president resigned!” but the video doesn't discuss the president's resignation. Similarly, if a thumbnail has the text "top political news" but the video doesn't include any news coverage, it can be labelled as clickbait.

Landing on a clickbait video might make the viewers feel tricked, frustrated, or misled, especially when they want to find some important or timely information. YouTube will slowly start the crackdown against such videos by rolling out the enforcement in India over the coming months.

"To ensure creators have time to adjust to these enforcement updates, we’ll start by removing content that violates this policy without issuing a strike. And as we continue to educate creators, our enforcement efforts will prioritize new video uploads moving forward," YouTube said in a blog post.

The company didn't say when these changes will go live in other countries, given that misinformation and clickbait titles are a global concern. It also didn't discuss what topics would be the focus and precisely how YouTube would identify the difference between clickbait titles, thumbnails, and the actual content in the video before flagging.

YouTube has previously removed videos containing false information, such as those with misleading 2020 US election results and about one million videos containing coronavirus misinformation. The Google-owned video streaming giant also raged a war against fan accounts trying to impersonate actual creators and popular figures.

Over the years, YouTube has added several features to combat misinformation. For instance, creators can use the Corrections feature to report any inaccuracies in their content. This year, it added a crowd-sourcing feature that allows users to add notes to provide context and information about the video.

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