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YouTube demotes 'borderline' videos, boosts 'authoritative' sources

In January 2019 YouTube announced it would reduce recommendations of 'borderline content,' meaning videos that do not break its rules but come close. It paired this with prioritizing 'authoritative voices' for news queries, an approach it said began in 2017. YouTube later reported a 70% drop in watch time of such content from recommendations.

Jan 25, 2019
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Whose side it served: Neither party

The demotion targeted conspiracy and misinformation categories rather than a party; who it affected depended on which channels YouTube classified as borderline, which it did not publish.

What the record shows

YouTube's December 3, 2019 'Four Rs of Responsibility' post defined borderline content as content that 'comes close to — but doesn't quite cross the line of — violating our Community Guidelines.' It said that in January 2019 it began reducing recommendations of borderline content and videos that could misinform users in harmful ways. It said it began prioritizing authoritative voices for news and information queries in 2017. YouTube reported a 70% average drop in U.S. watch time of this content from non-subscribed recommendations, comparing a September–October 2019 average with January 2019. The demoted videos stayed on the platform and remained searchable; the change affected recommendations.

In their words

“we started to prioritize authoritative voices”— The YouTube Team, official YouTube blog · source
The other side

YouTube said the content was not removed and remained available to subscribers and searchers; it presented demotion as a middle path between leaving harmful misinformation fully amplified and deleting lawful speech.

Sources

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