Atlantic Council FrontPage event was hosting YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki for a discussion on how YouTube views its mission and responsibilities in the information ecosystem and the global digital regulatory efforts.
Susan Wojcicki, one of the only 2 women leaders in the list of the 10 leading companies (2021) has been in the tech industry for over 20 years. She was involved in the founding of Google and was put in charge of Google’s original video service. After observing the success of YouTube, Wojcicki proposed the acquisition of YouTube by Google in 2006, and has served as CEO of YouTube since 2014.
Answering Atlantic Council President & CEO Frederick Kempe, Wojcicki explains how YouTube has moved from entertainment to information and from recommending the newest to recommending the trusted and responsible.
Increasing connectivity has given rise to societal and geopolitical debates over the role of private industry and governments in governing the internet, the viability of human rights in digital spaces, and the impact of technology on societies. With approximately 2 billion users each month, YouTube is a major stakeholder in these conversations. The discussion provides a wide-ranging dialogue on the evolution of online speech, YouTube’s response to online harms, and the global conversation about expression, regulation, and norm-setting.
Wojcicki explains YouTube’s 4Rs of responsibility where most of YouTube do in terms of both technology (design) and policy falls into one of those actions:
- Remove – Content that violates the platform’s policies. A change and/or creation of new policies affects content that is not allowed on the platform any more. 90% automated by design.
- Raise – trusted information is brought to the front
- Reduce – not promoting content that is tactically meets the letter of a policy but not its spirit
- Reward – valuable content that advertisers would like to present in an environment of trustworthy creators and contributors