moe90YouTube is cracking down on clickbait
protistYouTube says the policy will combat “egregious” clickbait that misleads viewers, with a particular focus on videos related to “breaking news” or “current events.” The company’s examples of egregious clickbait include a video with the title “the president resigned!” that doesn’t actually address a resignation or a “top political news” thumbnail attached to a video with no news content.
This is only going to target garbage-level content. You can still expect the same clickbait-style titles and thumbnails from established creators
This will address extreme and obvious falsehoods but I still encounter clickbait of the more pedestrian kind everywhere I go. “You’re using your table saw WRONG” or “the 1 table saw trick 99% of people don’t know” etc.
I consider this clickbait: it creates a false sense of urgency and doesn’t convey any information in itself. What is this one trick? Oh I already knew that one, but I had to watch the video to realize that.
It wastes a lot of time and makes things harder to search for. And often these clickbait headlines are not in the video headline where YT can easily scan them, but in the thumbnail graphic in huge letters, where it’s probably harder to automate any moderation for.
I pay for YT premium but this aspect of the experience still feels ad-like and cheap.