Google-owned YouTube to invest $25mn in countering fake news

Google-owned video-sharing platform YouTube has announced it will invest $25 million to fight fake news -- especially for the urgent coverage of breaking news -- on its platform for over 1.8 billion monthly active users. The investment will be part of the Google News Initiative (GNI), first introduced in March by the tech giant, to help the media and to deal with fake news.

"We`re establishing a working group with news organisations and experts from around the world to help us develop new product features, improve the news experience on YouTube and tackle emerging challenges," said Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer ay YouTube, in a blog post late on Monday.

"News organisations including Vox Media, Jovem Pan and India Today are early members of the working group. We`re looking forward to having more join as we convene the group in the coming weeks," added Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer.

Beginning in the coming weeks, when YouTube users in the US search for videos on breaking news, they will see short excerpts of the news as well as the links to different media.

In addition, YouTube will provide links to Wikipedia or the Encyclopedia Britannica with controversial videos or conspiratorial issues such as the Moon landing.

"We remain committed to working with the journalism community to build a more sustainable video ecosystem for news organisations," the post read.

To make it easier to find quality news, YouTube has launched "Top News" shelf that highlights videos from news sources in search results. 

When a breaking news event happens, another new feature called "Breaking News" shelf will highlight videos from news organisations about that event directly on the YouTube homepage.

The "Top News" and "Breaking News" features have been launched in 17 countries, including in India.

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Mohan and Kyncl admitted that "there is a lot of work to do", but underlined that they will try to "provide a better experience to users who come to YouTube every day to learn more about what is happening in the world from a diversity of sources".

"We will provide funding across approximately 20 global markets to support news organisations in building sustainable video operations," the blog post added.