Clickbait videos have always been annoying, but there are times when they can be downright harmful. YouTube has vowed to step up its efforts to combat “blatant clickbait ads” on its site, especially those that cover – or pretend to cover – breaking news and current events. The site describes blatant clickbait as “a video where the title or thumbnail promises viewers something that the video does not deliver.”
YouTube claims that such videos leave viewers “feeling deceived, disappointed, or even misled” if they come to the site looking for truthful and timely information on important issues. If you’ve ever watched a video using clickbait, you know this is true. You may have learned how to recognize and skip such videos over the years, but some people still don’t know the difference between clickbait and legitimate content.
One example of blatant clickbait, according to YouTube, is a video with the words “The President has resigned!” that doesn’t actually say anything about the president resigning. Misleading thumbnails are also considered blatant clickbait ads. If the thumbnail says “top political news” and the video does not contain any political news, it will also be subject to forced removal by YouTube.
The website will start cracking down on clickbait videos in India – it hasn’t said how it will expand from there, but we’ve reached out to it for more information. For now, the site will remove any videos that violate this policy without announcing strikes. After it reviews the old videos, it will prioritize new uploads, presumably so that they do not reach more people than they should.
