YouTube to crack down on 'egregious' clickbait in India

Stepping up its fight against misleading and deceptive content, Google's YouTube has announced a war against clickbait in India.

In its blog, the platform has recently shared its plans of rolling out efforts to tackle the 'egregious' clickbait, over the coming months.

"We're strengthening our efforts to tackle egregious clickbait on YouTube. This means we're planning to increase our enforcement against videos where the title or thumbnail promises viewers something that the video doesn't deliver.

This is especially important when the video covers topics like breaking news or current events, ensuring viewers aren’t misled about what they watch on YouTube.

We'll start by slowly rolling this out in India over the coming months."

The move comes as part of YouTube's broader efforts to improve the credibility of the platform, especially when it comes to news-related content.

It is to be noted that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for a long time has been urging the platform get such content removed and take a stringent action against the same.

With an estimated 476 million YouTube users, India reportedly has more YouTube users than any other country, followed by the U.S. with 238 million users and the UK with 55.7 million users.

The Definition

Egregious clickbait occurs when the video’s title or thumbnail includes promises or claims that aren't delivered within the video itself, especially when that content focuses on breaking news or current events.

This can leave viewers feeling tricked, frustrated, or even misled—particularly in moments when they come to YouTube in search for important or timely information.

A common practice among YouTubers and content creators, clickbait typically refers to the practice of writing sensationalised or misleading headlines in order to attract clicks on a piece of content- which often leads users/viewers frustrated.

Clickbait often relies on exaggerating claims or leaving out key information in order to encourage traffic.

The Action and The Impact

YouTube has not shared much on whether or not it will start penalising content creators in India for misleading content.

However, the company will give the Indian content creators time to adjust to the changes. In the meantime, the company will remove content that violates YouTube's updated policy without issuing a strike.

"To ensure creators have time to adjust to these enforcement updates, we’ll start by removing content that violates this policy without issuing a strike.

And as we continue to educate creators, our enforcement efforts will prioritise new video uploads moving forward," it said.