Tag Archives: COVID-19 response

Cloud Covered: Google Cloud in March

This past month brought dramatic changes to our daily routines as a result of COVID-19. In a time of social distancing, technology helped fill many of the gaps in our lives. So we explored how cloud technology is helping, and how it’s keeping up with all of our online needs. 

We worked at home, together.
As work-from-home situations became a necessity globally in March, technology like video conferencing and live streaming became even more essential at work and school—and with friends. So we announced free access to our advanced Meet capabilities to G Suite and G Suite for Education customers, including room for up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.

IT administrators support those newly at-home workers.
Lots of people are working from home now for the first time. This means that networks are strained with more people accessing their email and internet from home, as well as taking part in video conferences. With this in mind, the G Suite Meet team shared some best practices for IT teams helping their company’s employees navigate these new challenges. For example, an IT administrator may need to provide support for a corporate device remotely, as well as communicate effectively and help provide a good experience. 

Women’s History Month brought inspiration.
We sat down with some Cloud Googlers in March to celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, and talked about technology, identity, and careers. Komal Singh, author of kids’ book Ara the Star Engineer, talked about how she decided to write her first book, and why books are the best way to reach kids. And three of Google Cloud’s customer engineers shared their paths to working in people-centered technology roles, and offered advice to those newer to the workforce. One takeaway: be tenacious, and pursue what you want until you get it. 

Keeping technology running in a time of uncertainty.
Making sure Google Cloud customers can run their businesses smoothly every day involves lots of technical experts to run some very sophisticated systems. That’s true even when traffic spikes or there are unexpected events. Take a look at how we keep systems running smoothly at Google, including established principles around what to do in an emergency, longstanding disaster recovery testing, Google-owned hardware, and built-in reserve capacity to ensure everyone gets the information they need without slow internet. 

Data to help research COVID-19 became freely available.
Data plays a huge role in public health, and access to data and tools to analyze all that data are essential for researchers, data scientists, and analysts responding to COVID-19. There’s now a hosted repository of related public datasets available to explore and analyze for free from the Google Cloud Console. These include the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Global Health Data from the World Bank, and more. Data scientists can use Google Cloud to analyze that data, cross-cut it with other data, and make predictions using machine learning.

That’s a wrap for March.

Accessibility ideas for distance learning during COVID-19

The massive shift towards distance learning presents many challenges for students, educators and guardians alike. But supporting students who have disabilities or require a hands-on approach in the classroom is an even greater challenge. Educators around the world are putting in long days to find creative ways to support all students in this new setting, especially students with disabilities. Here are some tips on using accessibility features to support all learners.

To help students stay organized and get work done

Distance learning has made it tougher for all students to pay attention and manage their time, and this can be especially hard for students with executive functioning challenges. These tools can hopefully help.

  • Use Calendar reminders to help students remember deadlines, and view due dates in the class Calendar in Google Classroom.

  • Encourage students to organize their assignments in Google Classroom or Google Keep, or in Google Drive. 

  • Suggest students use Chromebooks in full-screen mode when working on assignments to minimize distractions.

  • Students can use Virtual Desks on Chromebooks or the Dualless Chrome extension for students who may benefit from seeing multiple Chrome windows on a single Chromebook monitor. For example, students can view a video lesson on one side of the screen, and a written assignment on the other side.

  • To help students manage their time, use the Stopwatch & Timer Chrome extension to create large on-screen timers. 

  • Break up lessons into shorter parts, which can be beneficial for students with attention challenges.

  • Instead of doing video calls with the whole class, consider breaking the class into smaller groups, where each group meets one or two times per week. Prioritize 1:1 video calls for students who need it most.

  • For students used to working alongside teaching aides in class, you can create a Google Doc in which students can ask questions and get help in real time from their tutors, family members or support staff.

To help students and parents create a space for learning

Now that many of us are doing everything from home—teaching, learning, playing, and working—finding time for it all can be challenging. But it’s important to help students, especially those with learning challenges, carve out space and time to focus on schoolwork.

  • Dedicate a space (even if it’s small) for learning time only. If possible, avoid spaces near windows, open doors, or noisy areas of homes.

  • Suggest that students with attention challenges sit on swivel chairs, if available, to let off some energy. Fidget toys like spinners can also help students focus during lessons.

  • For students using text-to-speech tools, headphones can be helpful, especially if they’re listening during a video class with other students.

To ensure your lessons are accessible

Many Google tools have accessibility functions built in: 

  • If you’re using G Suite for Education, you can enable captioning in Meet or in Slides. Captions can be helpful for students who are Deaf or have hearing loss, or those learning English—but also students in a noisy home environment.

  • Record your presentations in Meet or tools like Screencast-O-Matic or Screencastify for students to watch on their own as homework. This can help you make the most of live lessons, when you want to encourage as much interaction as possible.

  • Learn from your peers who are sharing stories with Google about engaging students through distance learning. Visit the COVID-19 distance learning resource page and Teach from Home for help.

To learn more and watch some tutorials, watch these videos, our G Suite accessibility user guide or join a Google Group. And find more on the Teacher Center, YouTube, and the Chromebook App Hub. Now is an important time to learn from each other—if you have other ideas, we encourage you to share them via this Google Form to help educators around the world benefit from your experience.

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Support for public health workers fighting COVID-19

This week, we're beginning a series of Doodles to recognize the many people responding to COVID-19—from doctors and nurses caring for people on the front lines, to teachers and food service workers ensuring essential goods and services are still available. Coinciding with the start of National Public Health Week in the U.S., our first Doodle in the series shines a light on the public health workers who are at the forefront of fighting this disease.  

Public health is what we do together as a society to create the conditions in which everyone can be healthy. Public health workers include leaders at organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as scientists, like epidemiologists, field researchers, and lab scientists and technicians working to better understand the virus, find new cases, and track and predict and prevent its spread. 


Community education and access to reliable information are critical parts of promoting and protecting public health. Over the last few months we’ve partnered with WHO, Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) and national health ministries to surface authoritative information on COVID-19. On Search, people can find official information on how to prevent COVID-19 transmission, with links to helpful resources from health authorities. On YouTube, we have a dedicated news shelf with COVID-19 news from authoritative sources, curated playlists with official information, and we’ve connected popular YouTube creators with public health leaders. We’ve also launched #StayHome #WithMe, a campaign that encourages people to practice social distancing with playlists on education, cooking, fitness and more. 


Beyond this education effort, we’re proud to support the important work public health workers are doing behind the scenes to learn more about the virus, develop and deploy vaccines, and create evidence-based policy intended to reduce community transmission.


Scientists are critical to understanding and combating COVID-19. We’re supporting their work by providing Google Cloud research credits, including high performance computing to researchers. On Google Cloud’s Kaggle data science community, a coalition of leading research groups have gathered more than 44,000 COVID-19-related scholarly articles to share with data scientists.  


To aid researchers, data scientists, and analysts, we’ve also made available a hosted repository of public datasets, like Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the Global Health Data from the World Bank, and OpenStreetMap data, free to access and query through our COVID-19 Public Dataset Program.


Just last week we published an early release of our COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports: aggregated, anonymized data on movement trends across places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, to give public health workers insights to make more data driven policy. These reports are designed to inform public health officials as they implement and refine social distancing measures designed to prevent the spread of the virus, while protecting essential movement. 


Today we salute public health workers who are playing an important role in responding to this pandemic. Over the next two weeks, our Doodles will honor other essential frontline workers, including healthcare workers, first responders and the many people keeping services like sanitation, food service, public transit, schools, and more up and running. Thank you to all the people who are working to save lives and keep communities safe during this pandemic.


Ways to stay informed on coronavirus news

Around the world, people are turning to the news to understand the evolving coronavirus pandemic. We’re working to help people find and engage with quality news across our products to stay informed on COVID-19 developments.

Surfacing the latest authoritative coverage 

The new COVID-19 experience on Google News pulls together and organizes all the latest news at the global and local level and provides easy access to the latest guidance regarding prevention, symptoms, and treatment from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other authoritative sources. This feature is available across iOS, Android and web platforms in more than 20 countries and will be coming to more in the upcoming weeks.
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When people look for coronavirus information on Google Search, we show the latest news coverage at the top of their results. Given the fast-moving nature of coronavirus news, we’re working to ensure people receive the most up-to-date stories from broadly trusted sources in their Search results. These news results are part of our comprehensive COVID-19 experience in Search, which provides easy access to authoritative health information and data. 


On Google Assistant, we’ve expanded our coronavirus news coverage to provide the latest updates in more languages. Now when you ask, “Hey Google, what’s the latest news on coronavirus?” Google will give timely updates from relevant news providers. This experience is available globally on mobile devices and in more than 10 languages on smart speakers and smart displays.

Providing context to understand the full story

With so much new information about COVID-19 constantly coming online, it’s important not only to understand the latest news but also to gain context on various aspects of the story. 

The Google News COVID-19 feature organizes stories by topic such as the economy, health care and travel—as well as by region so people can better understand the pandemic's impact around the world. We’re also experimenting with how to best include a dedicated fact check section in this COVID-19 experience to highlight fact-check articles that address potentially harmful health misinformation. 

Podcasts provide a way for people to engage more deeply with different aspects of the coronavirus story. In the past several weeks, dozens of new high-quality podcasts about coronavirus have launched, and many established shows have focused their coverage on the virus. As part of the recently redesigned Google Podcasts app, we’ve added a dedicated carousel in several languages to connect people to these podcasts to help understand the coronavirus’ impact from a variety of perspectives.

Highlighting important local news and information

Local news plays a critical role in informing people about the virus’ impact in their communities. The COVID-19 feature in Google News puts local news front and center with a dedicated section highlighting the latest authoritative information about the virus from local publishers in your area. This feature is available today in more than 10 countries and will expand to additional countries in the coming weeks.


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In Search, we’re surfacing Tweets from local authorities, as they provide important announcements about the virus to their communities. On Google Assistant, we’re working to help people access coronavirus news about a particular location, and we’re now able to provide more specific answers to requests in English like “Hey Google, play news about coronavirus in New York.” And in the past month, more than half of listens to our audio news feature Your News Update have included a coronavirus story from a local news outlet.


We'll continue to work on highlighting high-quality, relevant news about COVID-19 for people around the world over the coming weeks.


Helping public health officials combat COVID-19

As global communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increasing emphasis on public health strategies, like social distancing measures, to slow the rate of transmission. In Google Maps, we use aggregated, anonymized data showing how busy certain types of places are—helping identify when a local business tends to be the most crowded. We have heard from public health officials that this same type of aggregated, anonymized data could be helpful as they make critical decisions to combat COVID-19. 

Starting today we’re publishing an early release of our COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports to provide insights into what has changed in response to work from home, shelter in place, and other policies aimed at flattening the curve of this pandemic. These reports have been developed to be helpful while adhering to our stringent privacy protocols and policies. 

The reports use aggregated, anonymized data to chart movement trends over time by geography, across different high-level categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential. We’ll show trends over several weeks, with the most recent information representing 48-to-72 hours prior. While we display a percentage point increase or decrease in visits, we do not share the absolute number of visits. To protect people’s privacy, no personally identifiable information, like an individual’s location, contacts or movement, is made available at any point. 

We will release these reports globally, initially covering 131 countries and regions. Given the urgent need for this information, where possible we will also provide insights at the regional level. In the coming weeks, we will work to add additional countries and regions to ensure these reports remain helpful to public health officials across the globe looking to protect people from the spread of COVID-19.

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Navigate and download a report for your region of interest

In addition to other resources public health officials might have, we hope these reports will help support decisions about how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, this information could help officials understand changes in essential trips that can shape recommendations on business hours or inform delivery service offerings. Similarly, persistent visits to transportation hubs might indicate the need to add additional buses or trains in order to allow people who need to travel room to spread out for social distancing. Ultimately, understanding not only whether people are traveling, but also trends in destinations, can help officials design guidance to protect public health and essential needs of communities.

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A Community Mobility Report example for State of Louisiana, United States

In addition to the Community Mobility Reports, we are collaborating with select epidemiologists working on COVID-19 with updates to an existing aggregate, anonymized dataset that can be used to better understand and forecast the pandemic. Data of this type has helped researchers look into predicting epidemics, plan urban and transit infrastructure, and understand people’s mobility and responses to conflict and natural disasters.

Privacy protections

The Community Mobility Reports are powered by the same world-class anonymization technology that we use in our products every day. For these reports, we use differential privacy, which adds artificial noise to our datasets enabling high quality results without identifying any individual person. 

The insights are created with aggregated, anonymized sets of data from users who have turned on the Location History setting, which is off by default. Users who have Location History turned on can choose to turn the setting off at any time from their Google Account, and can always delete Location History data directly from their Timeline. 

These are unprecedented times and we will continue to evaluate these reports as we get feedback from public health officials, civil society groups, local governments and the community at large. We hope these insights will add to other public health information that will help people and communities stay healthy and safe.

COVID-19: $800+ million to support small businesses and crisis response

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen around the world, it’s taking a devastating toll on lives and communities. To help address some of these challenges, today we’re announcing a new $800+ million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic. 


Our commitment includes:


  • $250 million in ad grants to help the World Health Organization (WHO) and more than 100 government agencies globally provide critical information on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other measures to help local communities. This is an increase from our initial $25 million announced last month. In addition, we’re providing $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions and NGOs specifically to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs.

  • A $200 million investment fund that will support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide small businesses with access to capital. As one example, we’re working with the Opportunity Finance Network in the U.S. to help fill gaps in financing for people and communities underserved by mainstream financial institutions. This is in addition to the $15 million in cash grants Google.org is already providing to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs.

  • $340 million in Google Ads credits available to all SMBs with active accounts over the past year. Credit notifications will appear in their Google Ads accounts and can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across our advertising platforms. We hope it will help to alleviate some of the cost of staying in touch with their customers.

  • A pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits for academic institutions and researchers to leverage our computing capabilities and infrastructure as they study potential therapies and vaccines, track critical data, and identify new ways to combat COVID-19. Learn how to apply for credits on the Google for Education site.

  • Direct financial support and expertise to help increase the production capacity for personal protective equipment (PPE) and lifesaving medical devices. We’re working with our longtime supplier and partner Magid Glove & Safety, with the goal of ramping up production of 2-3 million face masks in the coming weeks that will be provided to the CDC Foundation. Additionally, employees from across Alphabet, including Google, Verily and X, are bringing engineering, supply chain and healthcare expertise to facilitate increased production of ventilators, working with equipment manufacturers, distributors and the government in this effort.

In addition to these commitments, we also increased the gift match Google offers every employee annually to $10,000 from $7,500. That means our employees can now give $20,000 to organizations in their communities, in addition to the $50 millionGoogle.org has already donated. Together, we’ll continue to help our communities—including our businesses, educators, researchers and nonprofits—to navigate the challenges ahead.

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Keeping our network infrastructure strong amid COVID-19

Google's network supports products that people around the world rely on every day, like YouTube, Search, Maps and Gmail. It also connects Google Cloud customers to their employees and users. As the coronavirus pandemic spreads and more people move to working or learning from home, it’s natural to wonder whether the Google network can handle the load. The short answer is yes. 

We’ve designed our network to perform during times of high demand. The same systems we built to handle peaks like the Cyber Monday online shopping surge, or to stream the World Cup finals, support increased traffic as people turn to Google to find news, connect with others, and get work done during this pandemic. And while we’re seeing more usage for products like Hangouts Meet, and different usage patterns in products like YouTube, peak traffic levels are well within our ability to handle the load. 

Google’s network consists of a system of high-capacity fiber optic cables that encircle the globe, under both land and sea, connecting our data centers to each other, and to you. Traffic flows over our dedicated network, optimized for speed and reliability until we hand it off to more than 3,000 internet service providers (ISPs) in 200+ countries and territories for local delivery—the “last mile”—using hundreds of points of presence and thousands of edge locations around the world.

Handling traffic on Google’s infrastructure and bringing it close to people helps limit the burden on operators—whose networks have different levels of reserve capacity—to allow them to focus on delivering that last mile. Together, we work to provide the best possible experience for browsing, video-conferencing, streaming, making purchases online, and more to people around the world. We’re continuing to work with governments and network operators around the globe as we do our part to minimize stress on the system. As part of this, we recently announced that we are temporarily defaulting all videos on YouTube to standard definition.  

We also recognize the importance of Google services at a time like this and continue to add capacity to stay ahead of demand. Our dedicated global network deployment and operations team is increasing capacity wherever needed, and, in the event of a disruption, recovers service as quickly as possible. 

This may be a time of global uncertainty, but we're working hard to ensure the Google network is there for everyone, business or consumer, day and night.

Connecting people with COVID-19 information and resources

Since the beginning of the year, search interest in COVID-19 has continued to climb around the world. Right now the disease is the largest topic people are looking for globally, surpassing even some of the most common and consistent queries we see in Search.

COVID trends

As this public health crisis has evolved into a pandemic, information needs are continuing to change, differing from region to region. When COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in late January, we launched an SOS Alert with resources and safety information from the WHO, along with the latest news. The alert has launched in 25 languages across dozens of countries, and people in more than 50 countries can access localized public health guidance from health authorities. 

Expanding our COVID-19 Search experience
Now, as we continue to see people’s information needs expanding, we’re introducing a more comprehensive experience for COVID-19 in Search, providing easy access to authoritative information from health authorities alongside new data and visualizations. This new format organizes the search results page to help people easily navigate information and resources, and it will also make it possible to add more information over time as it becomes available.

Search COVID GIF

In addition to links to helpful resources from national and local health authorities, people will also find a carousel of Twitter accounts from local civic organizations and health authorities to help connect them with the latest local guidance as it’s shared. We’ve also introduced a feature to surface some of the most common questions about the pandemic, with relevant snippets sourced from the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

To help people track the latest information about the spread of the disease, we’re adding modules with statistics and a map showing COVID-19 prevalence in countries around the world. This new COVID-19 experience on Search will roll out in the coming days in English in the U.S., and we plan to add more information and expand to other languages and countries soon.

A website dedicated to help and resources
In addition to launching new features on Google Search that provide easy access to more authoritative information, we’ve worked with relevant agencies and authorities to roll out a website—available at google.com/covid19—focused on education, prevention and local resources. People can find state-based information, safety and prevention tips, search trends related to COVID-19, and further resources for individuals, educators and businesses. Launching today in the U.S., the site will be available in more languages and countries in the coming days and we’ll update the website as more resources become available. Along with our other products and initiatives, we hope these resources will help people find answers to the questions they’re asking and get the help they need.

Guidance around local health services
We’re also looking for more ways we can help people follow authoritative public health guidance and locate appropriate health services through our products. Right now in the U.S., people seeking out urgent care, hospitals and other medical services in Search or Maps will see an alert reminding them of the CDC’s recommendation that symptomatic individuals call ahead in order to avoid overwhelming health systems and increasing the risk of exposure.

Urgent Care COVID

As coronavirus becomes a challenge in more communities and as authorities around the world develop new guidance and tools to address the pandemic, we’ll continue to find more opportunities to connect people with key information to keep themselves, their families, and their communities safe.

Helping educators and students stay connected

As many educational institutions around the globe are undergoing, extending or planning closures due to COVID-19, half of the world’s student population is unable to attend school. Educators face the challenge of teaching remotely at an unprecedented scale, and in some cases, for the first time.

In the last week we’ve created new distance learning resources including a collection of training materials, a list of useful apps, a new Learn@Home YouTube resource designed for families, as well as a series of blog posts and webinars. We’ve also made our premium Meet features free for schools through July 1, 2020. This includes the ability to have 250 people in a call together, record lessons and livestream. And thanks to feedback from educators, we’re also constantly making product improvements, like these new educator controls for Hangouts Meet. 

We’ve continued to listen to the challenges teachers are facing during these uncertain times and today we’re announcing two new resources to help teachers and students stay connected.

Teach from Home

Teach From Home is a central hub of information, tips, training and tools from across Google for Education to help teachers keep teaching, even when they aren’t in the classroom. 

To start, we’re providing an overview of how to get started with distance learning—for example how to teach online, make lessons accessible to students, and collaborate with other educators.

The resource will continue to evolve. We've built the hub with the support and cooperation of UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, who is also working with other education partners to respond to this emergency. As we continue receiving feedback from teachers and partners on what’s most helpful, we’ll continue to build and improve this. Teach From Home is currently available in English, with downloadable toolkits available in Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic and Polish, with additional languages coming soon.

Supporting organizations who are helping to reduce barriers to distance learning

When facing these challenges, we’re at our best when we respond as a community. As part of our $50 million Google.org COVID-19 response, we’re announcing a $10 million Distance Learning Fund to support organizations around the globe that help educators access the resources they need to provide high quality learning opportunities to children, particularly those from underserved communities.

The Google.org Distance Learning Fund’s first grant will be $1 million to help Khan Academy provide remote learning opportunities to students affected by COVID-19 related school closures. Along with the grant, Google volunteers are planning to help Khan Academy provide educator resources in more than 15 languages, and through their platform, they'll reach over 18 million learners a month from communities around the globe. We hope to announce additional organizations soon.

We’re inspired by the ideas and resources educational leaders are sharing with each other during this time. To continue the conversation, join a Google Educator Group, share your distance learning tips and tricks, and connect with us on Twitter and Facebook. We hope you’ll keep passing along your ideas and feedback so we can continue to evolve and build this together.
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Actions to reduce the need for people to come into our offices

During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, many companies are closing their offices and directing their employees to work from home (WFH), schools are moving to online classes and people are quickly adopting social distancing measures. Our priority is to take care of people who work in our offices—including employees, vendors and temporary staff—and the communities they work in. So we’ve been taking action to reduce the need for people to come into our offices, particularly in locations where local COVID-19 conditions merit increased precaution.

At the same time, we know that people rely on Google’s products and services, so a limited proportion of employees, temporary staff and vendors continue to work in our offices, because some important jobs can only be done onsite—like those who need to access the most sensitive content or account data for user and customer safety and security. (For example, the people who help you if your account gets hacked.)

Here’s how we’re reducing the need for people to come into our offices while ensuring that our products continue to operate under these unique circumstances. 

Remote access

In most parts of the world, we’ve recommended that everyone who can work from home should do so. We’re also increasing the ability for employees, temporary staff and vendors to work from home by rolling out remote access and equipment, like secure laptops, where feasible. We’re working closely with our partners to provide the right equipment and guidance as fast as possible.

Prioritizing workflows

To reduce the need for support staff to come into the office, where possible we’re prioritizing support work that is critical—like account recovery, security, and certain advertising-related reviews (such as preventing COVID-19 scams, or inappropriate ad placements). 

Increasing automation 

We’ve always used a combination of humans and machines to review content on our platforms, like YouTube. We will temporarily be increasing our reliance on automated systems given this unique situation, to reduce the need for people to come into the office. Our goal is to continue to act quickly to remove content that violates our community guidelines and policies. 

Adjusting shifts

To promote social distancing and reduce the number of people in the office at a given time, in some locations, we’ll change the timing of shifts, the timing between shifts, and the number of people on a given shift based on the work required.

Temporary implications for support times

We know that right now, people around the world need information, communication and computation more than ever. We’re deeply committed to helping. All our products remain fully operational. The changes we’re making to our operations won’t impact their availability. 

However, given the steps we need to take due to these unprecedented times, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support in some cases:

  • Some users, advertisers, developers and publishers may experience delays in some support response times for non-critical services, which will now be supported primarily through our chat, email, and self-service channels. 

  • Our goal on YouTube is to ensure we are removing content that violates our policies. We've invested significantly in automated systems for content review but they are not always as accurate or granular in their analysis of content as human reviewers. These systems are configured deliberately to identify content that may violate our policies. So on YouTube there may be an increase in content classified for removal during this time—including some content that does not violate our policies. Turnaround times for appeals against these decisions may be slower. You can read more on the YouTube blog. 

  • For other Google products, our automated systems may not always accurately classify content for removal, and human review of these decisions may be slower.

We will provide updates if there are additional delays in support over time.

Covering our workforce

As we temporarily reduce the need for people to come into the office, we’ve committed that during this time, members of our extended workforce who are affected by reduced schedules will be compensated for the time they would have worked. We also established a COVID-19 fund so that members of our extended workforce who would not otherwise be paid will be compensated for their normal working hours if they can’t come into work because they have potential symptoms of COVID-19 or if they’re quarantined. For those coming to the office, we have significantly enhanced our hygiene and cleaning operations, are increasing spacing between people, and in some locations have instituted temperature checks.

We thank you for your support and understanding during this challenging period, and we think this is the right thing to do for the people who work here, and the community at large.