Which means Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, is also flying a little under the radar. But he shouldn’t: His decisions on everything from how YouTube pays people who make its videos to how it deals with negative content matter a lot.
I spoke with Mohan about both of those topics, and more, during a recent interview, and you can listen to the whole thing on Channels, the weekly podcast I host.
But in these edited articles, I’m focusing on two things: YouTube’s long-standing practice of sharing half of its revenue with the majority of video uploaders on the site – a rarity for a major platform of the Internet – and how Mohan will deal with claims of voter fraud in the upcoming US presidential election.
Mohan has a good knack for not saying things he doesn’t want to say – he spoke to me the day after testifying in one of the two anti-government trials against and Google, his parent company – but I think you can still understand. what he thinks here.
Another thing I think a lot is the fact that you guys are the only ones in charge which does not show porn platform to give more money to people who make videos. [Your payout] it’s 55% for standard video. Why do you think that none of your competitors on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat have created a system similar to the one you have?
That’s a good question. Why do you think that is?
It is expensive.
[nods]
You keep nodding your head. This is a sound system, but you’re nodding your head.
I think what I can say is that we are proud of the fact that we are not only the first, but we are the largest producer economy.
And the designers, speaking to me, are focused on two things. First and foremost, of course, is to help them find and build an audience. Other than that, nothing else matters.
But the second thing is that most creative people want to make a living. They want to build a business on YouTube. And so those are the two main conversations we have. And in the last three years, as you know, we’ve paid $70 billion to the creator economy. It is something we are very proud of.
But to be the devil’s advocate – don’t you look at the people on Instagram, the people on TikTok, and go “They’re building big businesses. The creators seem to be doing things for them. They don’t get nothing to them, or they are getting very little money compared to what we pay, I wish we could pay less. Do you have that conversation?
Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world of value in what we do. And you can’t do that in any meaningful way without giving [creators] how to make a living on stage.
But instead of 55%, it would be 25%, right? It can still be better than any deal you find anywhere else. You are providing all those resources. People will still use you because you are cutting bigger checks than anyone else. Why don’t you do that?
I am a firm believer that the true path to success here is to grow the pie as a whole…rather than thinking about whether the share should be X or Y.
You are wrapped Shorts a few years ago. That’s your example of TikTokand that has a different charge. It’s 45% instead of 55%. Why is that share so low?
Well, Shorts’ monetization methods work a little differently. This method is for use in the feed you are reading. So those dollars are pooled in contrast to the way they work in the traditional way of YouTube, with ads related to videos. So, even the concept of rev share, just there at a basic level, is a little different.
There are also other things that go into producing and having Shorts content made that differ only in terms of cost structure. Most of the shorts are about creativity on stage. So there’s a lot of resources that we invest in to make those creative tools work well, to make the filters and effects work the way they do, so that they can be distributed on feed. So that’s a different kind of service that we offer creators versus longforms, which, as you know, have typically grown because of people uploading them to YouTube.
So your costs are greater.
There are many tools and services that we offer in that context, in terms of mobile creation, that the old YouTube videos did not have as part of the business.
So here is a theory, but no that hypothetical situation. I think you’ve thought about this: We’re going to have an election in November, and there’s a situation where Donald Trump loses – he’s declared a loser by the media – and Donald Trump and his allies say, “This It’s not true. We’re going to fight this Stop Stealing.” Have you ever thought how you will deal with people who say the election was rigged?
I will say a few things. First, as in 2020 and 2022 and more and more elections around the world, accountability is our priority. I have a team that focuses on electoral integrity. We just finished the biggest election in the world that happened in six, seven weeks, in India, where we went through a lot of these things and had to stay vigilant. And the US election will be no different in that context. So all the tools that we learned worked here will be the tools and skills that we will have.
I will also explain the hierarchy [of our plan] from my point of view, the first and most important thing – and in fact, where most of the action takes place on a platform like YouTube – is to make sure that we really present content from authoritative sources .
You go to YouTube, looking for information. So you have to get it from those sources, whether it’s CNN or The New York Times or Fox News. That will be first and foremost.
It’s not the most talked about, but that’s what users are hearing.
Our rules of conduct for the selection of routes are very clear. We will confirm those no matter what happens there.
But another thing that’s very important is that we have these basic principles, but we also need to be flexible with what’s really happening in the environment. And we will be in this case too.
If we have a replay of 2020, where this year is equal to Rudy Giuliani it’s going around with Donald Trump saying, “There’s fraud here, there’s fraud there,” making statements – you guys are not in a position to check whether they’re making those statements. Do you allow them to upload content to YouTube? Do you allow people to report those reports?
In general, we are an open platform for political discussion. And, as you know, leading up to the election, post election, a lot of political talk is very heated, a lot of opinions are flying around. And the basis of how YouTube works is that we allow that content to exist and for people to access that content. But what’s also happening is this news from authoritative sources, news sources that really cover the facts, the review goes up with recommendations, but you also see it very clearly on the news shelf when you open the device when you don’t. We are looking for that type of information.
You’re asking what’s left and what’s going down. But what I’m trying to say is that a lot of the things that are really important to the user experience are a lot of these relationships that we have with news organizations and whose news is actually being published.
That sounds obvious to me, but I live the truth. I am a person based on reality. But there will be people who go, “What happened to the conspiracy theorist? CNN or the New York Times, and you’re not giving me what I want.
We can do two things. First, we must be clear about our principles, as I hope I have been able to explain here. And then we have to be transparent about what the guidelines of our society are, and then we have to do everything in our power to enforce them against them. And we will be criticized regardless of the kinds of decisions that are made, but our job is to be principled about it, transparent about it, and have high quality enforcement around the rules of we of the roads.
Have you ever wanted to look with passion Elon Musk and what he does on Twitter and say, “Man, would my job be so much easier if we didn’t get involved in moderation at all?”
I think our approach to accountability, the way we think about our community guidelines, is at the core of how YouTube works. It’s what our users expect from us, it’s what our creators expect, and it’s what our advertisers and marketing partners expect from YouTube. And you should expect us to continue with those core principles.
Amazon recently picked up a digital package from the NBA. You are a big NBA fan. I had heard, and I thought there was others report come out you guys made a proposal for that package. Is that true?
Look, we talk to the NBA all the time. They have been very old partners for twenty years now. They operate very large channels. Groups operate channels. I won’t comment on anything specific other than the fact that I have always been an avid Warriors fan.