In July, as part of the Google News Initiative (GNI), we announced innovation funding to help newsrooms and publishers strengthen their online video capabilities and experiment with new formats for video journalism. Hundreds of organizations submitted proposals through an open application process and today we’re sharing the 87 recipients.

Hailing from 23 countries around the world, they represent a diverse array of broadcasters, traditional and digital publishers, local media, agencies and creators, but all share a commitment to quality journalism and a spirit of innovation.



Many of these projects are focused on expanding newsroom video operations and trying out new ways of reporting news through video — from reaching younger audiences online to exploring live and fact-checking formats. Other projects look at the sustainability of news organizations, including work on new business models and programs to support a healthy news ecosystem. Here’s a sample of some of the projects funded:

• Advance Local (United States): U.S. publisher Advance Local will build out a new format for local news storytelling, enabling them to connect more deeply with their communities across the country. They will start in Michigan, where MLive Media Group (Mlive.com) will connect directly with its viewers, providing avenues for action on topics of important local interest, giving viewers the information they need to have their voice heard on issues of the day.

• The Economist (United Kingdom): British publisher The Economist will strengthen its video production facilities and expertise, enabling it to launch a weekly video format that will explore the true story behind trending news topics. Through live streaming and audience engagement tools, viewers will be able to interact with the story along with the producers, their processes and sources. The new format aims to give viewers the tools to spot misinformation, analyze news sources and join the conversation.

• HugoDécrypte (France): A top French news creator, HugoDécrypte will staff and train a production team to create a studio-based live news show. The show will form an on-screen meeting place for HugoDécrypte’s YouTube community to learn about and debate the key news issues of the day. It will consist of regular segments including news bulletins, fact-checking and interviews with well-known political figures and subject matter experts.

• La Nación (Argentina): One of Argentina’s leading newspapers, La Nación will enhance their video operations at large. In business since 1870, La Nación has a rich history in print journalism, which they are extending to video. This funding will be used to grow their video team, improve digital video skills and increase output, enabling them to deliver engaging content, including behind the scenes snapshots of their hard-hitting investigative journalism and fresh takes on news of the day through video digests.

• Narasi TV (Indonesia): Independent Indonesian journalist Najwa Shihab’s media company will mobilize its community across the country’s 34 provinces. It will host workshops to train budding citizen journalists on visual storytelling, news video production and media literacy, encouraging more Indonesians to become credible content creators as well as critical consumers of media. Meanwhile, Narasi TV’s own investigative journalism team will staff up their video team to produce more in-depth reports, particularly in hotly contested parts of the country in the run-up to Indonesia’s general elections.

• Thairath (Thailand): The digital arm of one of Thailand’s oldest news publishers, Thairath, will create a rights management platform for Thailand’s freelance journalists. This platform will help Thai “stringers” more easily manage their footage rights from media companies. By protecting and promoting the important work of independent Thai journalists, the effort will support both the Thai media ecosystem and global news agencies seeking news about Thailand.

Today’s announcement reinforces our commitment to supporting a strong future for news video. Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing insights gained from the projects and giving newsrooms the opportunity to benefit from the learnings, as we work together to support the development of long-term, sustainable news video businesses.

For more information about YouTube’s work with the news industry, please visit our website. We look forward to seeing how our partners across the globe push the boundaries of video journalism.

Timothy Katz, Director of News Partnerships, YouTube

We’ve always used a mix of human reviewers and technology to address violative content on our platform, and in 2017 we started applying more advanced machine learning technology to flag content for review by our teams. This combination of smart detection technology and highly-trained human reviewers has enabled us to consistently enforce our policies with increasing speed.

We are committed to tackling the challenge of quickly removing content that violates our Community Guidelines and reporting on our progress. That’s why in April we launched a quarterly YouTube Community Guidelines Enforcement Report. As part of this ongoing commitment to transparency, today we’re expanding the report to include additional data like channel removals, the number of comments removed, and the policy reason why a video or channel was removed.

Focus on removing violative content before it is viewed

We previously shared how technology is helping our human review teams remove content with speed and volume that could not be achieved with people alone. Finding all violative content on YouTube is an immense challenge, but we see this as one of our core responsibilities and are focused on continuously working towards removing this content before it is widely viewed.

• From July to September 2018, we removed 7.8 million videos
• And 81% of these videos were first detected by machines
• Of those detected by machines, 74.5% had never received a single view

When we detect a video that violates our Guidelines, we remove the video and apply a strike to the channel. We terminate entire channels if they are dedicated to posting content prohibited by our Community Guidelines or contain a single egregious violation, like child sexual exploitation. The vast majority of attempted abuse comes from bad actors trying to upload spam or adult content: over 90% of the channels and over 80% of the videos that we removed in September 2018 were removed for violating our policies on spam or adult content.

Looking specifically at the most egregious, but low-volume areas, like violent extremism and child safety, our significant investment in fighting this type of content is having an impact: Well over 90% of the videos uploaded in September 2018 and removed for Violent Extremism or Child Safety had fewer than 10 views.

Each quarter we may see these numbers fluctuate, especially when our teams tighten our policies or enforcement on a certain category to remove more content. For example, over the last year we’ve strengthened our child safety enforcement, regularly consulting with experts to make sure our policies capture a broad range of content that may be harmful to children, including things like minors fighting or engaging in potentially dangerous dares. Accordingly, we saw that 10.2% of video removals were for child safety, while Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) represents a fraction of a percent of the content we remove.

Making comments safer

As with videos, we use a combination of smart detection technology and human reviewers to flag, review, and remove spam, hate speech, and other abuse in comments.

We’ve also built tools that allow creators to moderate comments on their videos. For example, creators can choose to hold all comments for review, or to automatically hold comments that have links or may contain offensive content. Over one million creators now use these tools to moderate their channel’s comments.¹

We’ve also been increasing our enforcement against violative comments:

• From July to September of 2018, our teams removed over 224 million comments for violating our Community Guidelines.
• The majority of removals were for spam and the total number of removals represents a fraction of the billions of comments posted on YouTube each quarter.
• As we have removed more comments, we’ve seen our comment ecosystem actually grow, not shrink. Daily users are 11% more likely to be commenters than they were last year.

We are committed to making sure that YouTube remains a vibrant community, where creativity flourishes, independent creators make their living, and people connect worldwide over shared passions and interests. That means we will be unwavering in our fight against bad actors on our platform and our efforts to remove egregious content before it is viewed. We know there is more work to do and we are continuing to invest in people and technology to remove violative content quickly. We look forward to providing you with more updates.

YouTube Team

At YouTube Music, we are constantly striving to give fans more ways to explore the world of music. Today, we are making the previously announced YouTube Charts available in YouTube Music as playlists so fans in our 29 launched markets can effortlessly explore the hottest songs and videos both globally and locally.

Looking to check out the top most-played songs this week on YouTube, the most-viewed music videos, or see what’s trending? We’ve got you covered! Fans can now easily access YouTube Charts as playlists that will appear on users’ home screens or by search. It’s ALL here and easy to find, watch and listen to what’s popular, rising and trending both locally and globally — all within YouTube Music.

Every country — all 29 markets — will get five charts playlists: three specific to their country and two global lists. Fans can also add their favorite charts to their library so they can stay up-to-date on what’s trending on the platform.