For the past two years, the internet has become more accessible for the Indians, due to high connectivity and low-cost plans. This has led to increased screen time for Indian smartphone users. According to a report from YouTube, the Indian users have become more active on this video streaming platform, tripling the number of users in the past two years, especially on the news channels.
Keeping this in mind, YouTube is now focusing on the news section on the platform and is working towards promoting authoritative news and bringing transparency for the users on YouTube. The company is launching three new features in support for the sources that provide authoritative news and to provide transparency to its viewers, i.e. Top News, Breaking News, and Fact-Checker labels.
As the name suggests, Top News feature will display a shelf of news on the platform, where the latest and important news from the trustworthy news sources will flash frequently. The Breaking News again will show the breaking news from reliable sources, and the news will reflect directly on the homepage of YouTube. And, the Fact-Checker Labels, will help the users with the context and sources from where the news has been produced.
The company has also introduced the information panel for its users, such that the users can easily look for the context fo a specific content, event or even a publisher and make their own decision, i.e. to believe or not to believe on that very content.
The information panel, as well as the fact checker, will include the information both in Hindi and English languages, and along with India, those features have been launched in thirty other countries too. The fact-checker works on the open source Schema.org ClaimReview markup process.
The information panel will also label the government-funded news channels on the platform with “funded in whole or in part” as well as “public broadcast service”, such that the users will be able to judge the authenticity of the news sources. The information panel will also include a link to Wikipedia or other authorised informational sources of the news channel.
YouTube has mentioned making an investment worth $25 million for the news section on its platform and will work towards building a better online presence for the news channels.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.