• At a time when disinformation circulates at full speed on social networks, YouTube is deploying the means of control.

  • More than 900,000 videos related to dangerous or misleading medical information were taken down last year.

  • "We are really part of a logic of responding to this mission of YouTube which is to make information available to as many people as possible," explains Justine Ryst, Managing Director of YouTube France, to 

    20 Minutes.

“Finding the things we love” is what drives YouTube France. The platform is launching a new campaign on Monday, carried out in collaboration with the government. Before you play the video you clicked on, chances are you'll stumble upon a few seconds of a soccer match or maybe a grandmother and her grandson. With these series of spots, YouTube promotes vaccination against Covid-19, especially among its young audience since in January 2021, 11.5 million users between 18 and 34 years old watched a video on YouTube according to Médiamétrie data. .

Justine Ryst, Managing Director of YouTube France, gave an interview to 

20 Minutes 

in which she addresses the issue of information and the fight against disinformation on the platform since the start of the pandemic. 

What is the genesis of this communication campaign with the government?

The genesis is long before the Covid-19. We are really part of a logic of responding to this mission of YouTube, which is to make information available to as many people as possible. With the government, we have been talking for a long time since it is very active on YouTube. Since the start of Covid-19, we can already find all the press briefings from the Minister of Health on the government channel. When we arrived at these vaccine issues, which are a real national issue, we proactively proposed to the government information service (SIG) with whom we are working to go a step further and help by setting up a first campaign which made it possible to stay informed about the Covid-19.

This is the first part of a campaign that started on June 2 and is still running at the moment.

The goal, at a time when the French really need to be informed, is to be able to form an opinion, to understand and respond to their concerns.

It was important for us to relay this information issue.

Now that we are in this phase of vaccination, this campaign is evolving towards a logic of awareness and mobilization of vaccination.

It starts this Monday and will last over several weeks depending on the time needed.

This campaign is based on amateur videos.

Why this choice ?

The campaign, which really aims to find the things we love, that's its title, was intended to highlight situations that are both so familiar and of which we have been deprived: a grandmother with his grandson, children playing on a soccer field… In interaction with the government, we found that it was the best way to make people understand, beyond the principle of vaccination, the issue of rediscovering this freedom to be together.

When you connect to the YouTube homepage, news videos around the coronavirus are almost at the top.

How are they chosen?

On the one hand, over the past year and a half, we have accelerated these functionalities which allow users to be informed and to see all the proposals from referent sources of information. On the other hand, constant work, well before Covid-19, to support the sources of information in question. The news companies in France have really seized on YouTube as a complementary channel to everything they already offer to reach a younger target, even more international, and this user experience makes it possible to see directly in search results all possible sources. There, we are really in our role.

YouTube's primary mission, when it was created sixteen years ago, was "Give everyone a voice" and the second part of the sentence is "show them the world ”(“ expose it to as many people as possible ”).

The responsibility that we have is to make all these reference sources available to enlighten users in the opinion they want to have on such and such a subject.

Unlike French media videos, we can sometimes come across more dangerous content.

What challenge do conspiracy videos represent for you?

This subject of responsibility is really the priority of Susan Wojcicki, the big boss of YouTube in the world.

This commitment to responsibility is based on four pillars:

- Remove and delete all content that does not have to be on the platform. YouTube's infrastructure is based on artificial intelligence, which neutralizes the vast majority of videos that have no place on YouTube. Between January and March 2021, 9.5 million videos that were not on the platform were removed, including videos related to Covid-19 such as medical disinformation. An example, in France, it is the chain of Jean-Jacques Crèvecoeur which was withdrawn. Beyond this machine learning which makes it possible to neutralize 90% of the videos that do not have to be on the platform, we then have teams of moderators. These are 20,000 people all over the world who are based on different geographic areas and time zones.They are native speakers of each country to fully understand the issues. For videos that are not directly identified by the automatic part, they allow manual, human review, including reports made to us by users. In addition to these teams of moderators, we have a network of third-party partners such as SIG sur la santé in France, which have tools for reporting problematic videos and which allow them to be processed super quickly. This arsenal is exceedingly effective and allowed us to remove 900,000 videos about the medical disinformation around the world on Covid-19 last year.including reports made to us by users. In addition to these teams of moderators, we have a network of third-party partners such as SIG sur la santé in France, which have tools for reporting problematic videos and which allow them to be processed super quickly. This arsenal is exceedingly effective and allowed us to remove 900,000 videos about the medical disinformation around the world on Covid-19 last year.including reports made to us by users. In addition to these teams of moderators, we have a network of third-party partners such as SIG sur la santé in France, which have tools for reporting problematic videos and which allow them to be processed super quickly. This arsenal is exceedingly effective and allowed us to remove 900,000 videos about the medical disinformation around the world on Covid-19 last year.000 videos about the medical disinformation around the world on Covid-19 last year.000 videos about the medical disinformation around the world on Covid-19 last year.

- Reduce the content which is in the ultra minority, which asks questions but which does not violate our rules of use. This is the vast question of where freedom of expression ends and censorship begins. For these contents, you have the possibility of finding them on YouTube but we will neutralize any virality they can have. These are either somewhat borderline content, or content for which our regulations have not yet changed. We are in contact with the WHO and with 85 health authorities around the world to constantly update our regulations. In 2020, we made more than ten changes to our regulations related solely to medical disinformation.

- Promote all reference content.

We come back to the collaboration with all the leading information editors and all these functionalities with which we have developed YouTube to allow the user to access these different sources of information.

- Reward: YouTube's economic model is based on advertising and we give more than half of our income to the owners of these channels, assuming that they also have access to the right to monetization.

We changed our usage and monetization rules in 2019 to very mechanically neutralize a number of bad actors who took advantage of the platform to have more than questionable content and earn monetization. 

What is your take on the creators of “mainstream” content like Dr Nozman or Cyrus North who are speaking out on the subject of vaccination?

Two worlds meet: on the one hand, the YouTubers, in particular scientific popularizers who have a large, engaged and young audience.

On the other hand, you have the knowing, the scientific experts, who do not necessarily have this window.

It gives either great collaborations like this interview between Professor Fischer and Science4all where you still have 50,000 views on this video which teaches about the vaccine with the real questions of subscribers.

And then you have these science popularizers who work and collaborate with this whole network of experts for the preparation of their videos. These “edutubers” do a very thorough background and preparation work. They have a very demanding community, which looks at all sources. This is a real underlying trend in France. We really have a fabric of creators around the popularization of science which is constantly growing. They are very important in the idea of ​​giving the younger audience information references and better reading on what is going on in health in particular.

In a statement released on Monday, it is written that “YouTube connects creators with health experts to enable them to reimagine how to share vaccine information.

»How does this translate concretely?

They contact us through partners who come into contact with us.

It can be experts through associations engaged on YouTube or creators who ask us to work with experts who happen to be in our network.

There is no relation other than this idea of ​​making the link between these worlds and it works very well.

In general, the first to whom they appeal is their community and by branching, they manage very well to find a way.

Very specialized channels work in the shadows with networks of experts they know, faculty professors, teachers, to produce qualitative editorial coverage.

It becomes reference sources for information.

The presidential election is approaching.

Is it also a big deadline that involves high stakes for you?

A big deadline, yes, but in line with all the mobilization we have around these subjects, for example at the moment the Covid-19. In the same way that we have a responsibility in access to reference information to inform the opinion of users, it is exactly the same in the register of elections. How can we ensure that the dialogue can be as open and calm as possible on YouTube? How to ensure that all the messages of civic duty and mobilization to go to the vote are heard? The way in which the president asked Mcfly and Carlito to raise awareness of barrier gestures… We can spend hours discussing the format that was disruptive but the clip generated 15 million views and the message to the target that follows these two creators is completely passed.Politicians have fully understood the power of YouTube as a channel for direct contact with youth.

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  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus

  • Conspiracy theory

  • Anti-covid vaccine

  • Youtube