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YouTube CEO, Goyal Discuss Expanding India Collaboration

Goyal also held a roundtable discussion with prominent academicians at Stanford University. ..reports Asian Lite News

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Wednesday (local time) met YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. The two sides discussed how India presents a huge opportunity for YouTube to further expand its collaboration.

Taking to X, Piyush Goyal stated, “Delighted to meet Mr. @NealMohan, CEO of YouTube. We discussed how India presents a huge opportunity for @YouTube to further expand collaboration & footprint in the country with its: Thriving digital ecosystem Growing content space Young & diverse demography.”

Meanwhile, Piyush Goyal, who is on a four-day visit to US, earlier held a meeting with the CEO of Micron Technology Sanjay Mehrotra and discussed how India’s growing semiconductor ecosystem presents vast opportunities for company to collaborate and expand its footprint in India.

Taking to X, he stated, “Met Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO & President of @MicronTech. Discussed how India’s growing semiconductor ecosystem presents vast opportunities for the company to collaborate & expand its footprint in the country.”

Goyal also held a roundtable discussion with prominent academicians at Stanford University. In a post shared on X, he stated, “Held a roundtable discussion with prominent academicians at Stanford University. Highlighted the vast opportunities for collaboration with India’s higher education institutions to foster a vibrant exchange of knowledge, research and pathbreaking solutions to key global issues.”

He also met Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. He highlighted how India’s young talent, business ecosystem and growing economy presents opportunities for investments.

Goyal on X posted, “Had an engaging interaction with Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs & Venture Capitalists. Highlighted how India’s young talent, vibrant business ecosystem & growing economy presents the perfect opportunity for investments.”

Meanwhile, US-India Business Council Board Chair and Nasdaq Executive Vice Chairman Edward Knight has said there have been energetic interactions and engagements between the Indian and US governments in promoting entrepreneurship in both countries.

“What I would underscore is the energetic interaction and engagement between the two governments and the two ministers on the issue of promoting entrepreneurship in India and here in the US and how we can do that better, how cooperation between the two governments and the two business communities can lead to more high growth companies, entrepreneurship and economic growth both here and in India,” Edward Knight told ANI after the meeting with Piyush Goyal.

Asked what his take on the India-US relationship is in terms of business, Knight recalled his recent visit to India where he learnt about many US companies creating centres of excellence and other projects within India.

“A few weeks ago with the US-India Business Council and the Ambassador, we saw during that trip (to India) that Google announcing an assembly facility and for that matter many companies creating centres of excellence and other projects within India,” Knight noted.

During his visit to the US, Piyush Goyal also led an industry roundtable with his US counterpart Gina Raimondo. Goyal and Raimondo officially launched the two countries ambitious “Innovation Handshake” agenda, which US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi previewed during the Prime Minister’s official State Visit earlier this year.

At the event, co-hosted by the US-India Business Council and the Confederation of Indian Industry, CEOs from major information and communication technology companies, executives from venture capital firms, and founders of startups in the critical and emerging technology space discussed how to enhance US-India technology collaboration. (ANI)

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YouTube to crack down on AI-generated videos via labels

This is important in cases where the content discusses sensitive topics, such as elections, ongoing conflicts and public health crises, or public officials…reports Asian Lite News

Google-owned YouTube on Tuesday said it will soon require creators to disclose when they’ve created altered or synthetic content that is realistic, including using generative AI tools.

When creators upload content, YouTube will have new options for them to select to indicate that it contains realistic altered or synthetic material.

“For example, this could be an AI-generated video that realistically depicts an event that never happened, or content showing someone saying or doing something they didn’t actually do,” said the company.

This is important in cases where the content discusses sensitive topics, such as elections, ongoing conflicts and public health crises, or public officials.

The company warned that creators who consistently choose not to disclose this information may be subject to content removal, suspension from the YouTube Partner Programme, or other penalties.

“We’ll work with creators before this rolls out to make sure they understand these new requirements,” said YouTube.

The company will inform viewers that content may be altered or synthetic in two ways.

A new label will be added to the description panel indicating that some of the content was altered or synthetic. And for certain types of content about sensitive topics, we’ll apply a more prominent label to the video player.

“There are also some areas where a label alone may not be enough to mitigate the risk of harm, and some synthetic media, regardless of whether it’s labeled, will be removed from our platform if it violates our Community Guidelines,” the company informed.

Content created by YouTube’s generative AI products and features will also be clearly labeled as altered or synthetic.

In the coming months, YouTube will make it possible to request the removal of AI-generated or other synthetic or altered content that simulates an identifiable individual, including their face or voice, using our privacy request process.

“Not all content will be removed from YouTube, and we’ll consider a variety of factors when evaluating these requests. This could include whether the content is parody or satire, whether the person making the request can be uniquely identified, or whether it features a public official or well-known individual, in which case there may be a higher bar,” the company explained.

The platform is also introducing the ability for its music partners to request the removal of AI-generated music content that mimics an artist’s unique singing or rapping voice.

These removal requests will be available to labels or distributors who represent artists participating in YouTube’s early AI music experiments.

AI’s powerful new forms of storytelling can also be used to generate content that has the potential to mislead viewers — particularly if they’re unaware that the video has been altered or is synthetically created.

“To address this concern, over the coming months, we’ll introduce updates that inform viewers when the content they’re seeing is synthetic,” YouTube added.

ALSO READ-YouTube looks to boost news watching experience

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YouTube looks to boost news watching experience

YouTube said it is also launching the Shorts Innovation Programme for News – an initiative to strengthen news organisations’ short-form video capabilities through financial grants and specialist support…reports Asian Lite News

Google-owned YouTube on Wednesday announced new ways to help viewers dive deeper into the latest news stories and support journalists in creating dynamic news content.

The platform said it is introducing an immersive watch page experience for news stories on YouTube.  The news watch page will pull together content from authoritative sources across video on demand, live streams, podcasts, and Shorts, allowing viewers to deep dive and explore multiple sources and angles.

“All on one watch page, people will be able to find relevant long-form video, live coverage, and Shorts to quickly catch up,” the company said in a statement. This feature is rolling out over time for mobile users in approximately 40 countries, with desktop and living room integration to come.

YouTube said it is also launching the Shorts Innovation Programme for News – an initiative to strengthen news organisations’ short-form video capabilities through financial grants and specialist support.

“To start, we’re working with over 20 organisations across 10 countries, providing a total of $1.6 million. Participants are selected based on having a strong existing long-form video presence on YouTube, but are looking to improve and expand their Shorts news content creation,” said the company.

Over the next year, YouTube specialists will work with news organisations, including Univision in the US, AFP in France, and Mediacorp in Singapore on Shorts content strategy and video production best practices. “Our goal with the Shorts Innovation Programme is to jumpstart innovative news publishers who are interested in embracing short-form news capabilities, but haven’t had the resources to do so,” the company added.

ALSO READ-EU Warns Google and YouTube About Israel-Hamas Disinformation

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EU Warns Google and YouTube About Israel-Hamas Disinformation

EU reminds Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai to remove disinformation related to Israel-Hamas conflict on YouTube

European Commissioner Thierry Breton has sent a letter to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, reminding him about the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) to keep illegal content and disinformation from being shared on YouTube related to the Israel-Hamas war.

In the letter, also addressed to YoutTube CEO Neal Mohan, Breton said that following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, “we are seeing a surge of illegal content and disinformation being disseminated in the EU via certain platforms”.

“I would like to remind you that you have a particular obligation to protect the millions of children and teenagers using your platforms in the EU from violent content depicting hostage taking and other graphic videos,” the commissioner said late on Friday.

It means having appropriate and proportionate measures in place to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors, he added.

Breton has already warned X, Meta and TikTok on removing terrorist propaganda and manipulated content, such as repurposed videos or clickbaits, from their respective platforms.

He told Pichai that “when you receive notices of illegal content in the EU, you must be timely, diligent and objective in taking action and removing the relevant content when warranted”.

“Given the urgency, I also expect you to be in contact with the relevant law enforcement authorities and Europol and ensure that you respond promptly to their requests,” said Breton.

In the context of elections, he told Pichai that the DSA requires that the risk of amplification of fake and manipulated images and facts generated with the intention to influence elections is taken extremely seriously in the context of mitigation measures.

“I invite you to inform my team on the details of the measures you have taken to mitigate any deepfakes, also in the light of upcoming elections in Poland, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Belgium, Croatia, Romania and Austria, and the European Parliament elections,” said Breton.

“As you know, following the opening of a potential investigation and a finding of non-compliance, penalties can be imposed,” he added.

Earlier, Meta said that since the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza, “expert teams from across our company have been working around the clock to monitor our platforms, while protecting people’s ability to use our apps to shed light on important developments happening on the ground”.

“In the three days following October 7, we removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 pieces of content for violating these policies in Hebrew and Arabic,” the social network said in a blog post.

As compared to the two months prior, in the three days following October 7, “we have removed seven times as many pieces of content on a daily basis for violating our Dangerous Organisations and Individuals policy in Hebrew and Arabic alone,” Meta added.

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FB, X & YouTube pages most delisted from Google Search

Over the last eight years, people requested Google to delist over 5.6 million webpages — making them undiscoverable in Google search. About half of these requests were fulfilled….reports Asian Lite News

Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube pages are the most delisted from Google Search when requested by European individuals using the “right to be forgotten” privacy law, a new report has shown.

According to the cybersecurity firm Surfshark, about 100,000 Facebook, X, and YouTube pages have been delisted from Google using the “right to be forgotten”.

The ”right to be forgotten” is a European Union (EU) privacy law that allows individuals to request the delisting of their personal information from online search results or remove data held by certain organisations.

Over the last eight years, people requested Google to delist over 5.6 million webpages — making them undiscoverable in Google search. About half of these requests were fulfilled.

According to the report, usually, it is Facebook, X, and YouTube pages that Europeans want to get removed from Google Search results.

For instance, Facebook ranked among the top 10 domains from which Google has delisted the most web pages in 29 of the 31 analysed countries. As per the report, Facebook has 48.6K delisted URLs, X has 30.4K, and YouTube has 17.6K.

Germany and France are the most active countries among the 100k delisted pages across three platforms, accounting for nearly half of all delisted URLs.

“When accounting for the uneven population size across analyzed countries, the Netherlands emerges as a clear leader, with 57 URLs delisted per 100k people,” the report said.

Interestingly, neither of the platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) appeared in the top 10 in terms of delisted URLs on Google Search in Sweden and Romania.

Instead, in Sweden, the most commonly delisted domain was Mrkool.se (a website that publishes personal data of all Swedes above the age of 16), while in Romania, it was camvideos.me (an adult content website).

The researchers also claimed that, while around half of the requested URLs are delisted on average, the delisting rate of the top three domains is significantly lower, at around 40 per cent.

“This implies that requests to delist webpages from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are fulfilled somewhat less frequently than those from other domains,” the report mentioned.

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YouTube now platform of choice for 4 out of 5 Indians online

Its average daily views have grown by over 120 per cent year-on-year (YoY) globally….reports Asian Lite News

YouTube has become the platform of choice for four out of every five people online in India while its short-video making app has grown in popularity, with 96 per cent aged 18 to 44 in the country using YouTube Shorts, the company revealed on Wednesday.

With an average of 70 billion daily views globally, YouTube Shorts continues to grow in popularity among viewers in India, with 96 per cent aged 18 to 44 using YouTube Shorts.

Its average daily views have grown by over 120 per cent year-on-year (YoY) globally.

Shorts watch-time now also transcends devices with 88 per cent of online 18-44-year-olds watching short-form video content on a TV over the past 12 months.

Viewers in India are also splitting their viewing time across many different video formats, spending no more than 21 per cent of their viewing time watching one format, the company revealed during the ‘YouTube Brandcast 2023’ event here.

“In the 15 years since we launched YouTube in India, there has been an extraordinary all-round digital transformation, in connectivity and in content, and today, people have created a boundary-less viewer experience for themselves that straddles across their smartphones and their connected TVs,” said Satya Raghavan, Director, Marketing Partners, Google India.

“We’re delighted that, in this rapidly-evolving landscape, YouTube is the platform of choice for four out of every five people online. This is a testament to the unflagging contribution and inventiveness of India’s vast and growing creator economy,” he added.

Amidst the surge in digital video services, online Indians are curating personal video universes consisting of an average of 5 content platforms, with YouTube emerging as their foremost choice for watching videos.

About 33 per cent of connected TV consumers in urban India do not watch linear TV at all, with logged-in viewers averaging 2.5 hours of YouTube watch-time per day.

Together with the total hours of content uploaded to YouTube by channels in India growing by over 40 per cent in June 2023 vs June 2022, 35+ adults averaged over 70 minutes of YouTube per day in that month.

As creators begin to tap generative AI for new ideas and audiences, the year has seen over 1.7 billion views of videos related to or using generative AI tools globally. 

About 70 per cent of 18-44 year-old viewers online agree that they are open to watching content from creators that use AI to generate their content,” informed the company.

YouTube also announced the launch of a suite of tools in its Ads Creative Studio.

With these, marketers will now be able to easily create multiple versions of a single display or video ad customized for different audiences, locations, languages or contexts.

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YouTube Ends ‘Premium Lite’ Subscription Plan

YouTube’s ‘Premium Lite’ plan, which costs $7.39 per month was first introduced in select European countries in 2021…reports Asian Lite News

Google-owned YouTube has announced to end the lower-cost subscription plan ‘Premium Lite’, after piloting it for two years in select countries.

In an email to customers, the company announced it will no longer offer ‘Premium Lite’ after October 25 this year reports ‘The Verge’.

“We’re writing to let you know that after October 25, 2023, we will no longer be offering your version of Premium Lite,” YouTube wrote in the email.

“While we understand that this may be disappointing news, we continue to work on different versions of ‘Premium Lite’ as we incorporate feedback from our users, creators and partners,” it added.

YouTube’s ‘Premium Lite’ plan, which costs $7.39 per month was first introduced in select European countries in 2021, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, and offers ad-free viewing across YouTube’s spectrum of apps and formats.

However, it does not include Premium’s other features such as offline downloads, background playback, or any YouTube Music benefits, the report said.

Existing ‘Premium Lite’ subscribers will soon be forced to choose between watching YouTube with ads and upgrading to the more expensive YouTube Premium, which includes YouTube Music.

The removal comes only a few weeks after YouTube Premium raised its individual plan prices for the first time, with the plan now starting at $13.99 per month. Meanwhile, family plans increased to $22.99 per month late last year.

Meanwhile, YouTube has announced a new feature for its short-video making platform ‘Shorts’ that will allow users to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create videos. The feature called — ‘Dream Screen’, expected to roll out early next year, will allow users to create an AI-generated video or image background just by typing in what they want to see.

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YouTube’s Shorts May Threaten Long-Form Video Biz

Google recently announced that Shorts now has more than 2 billion logged-in monthly users, giving it an edge over competitors like TikTok and Instagram Reels…reports Asian Lite News

YouTube’s TikTok competitor Shorts may cannibalise the core, long-form video business of the Google-owned video streaming platform, the media reported.

According to a report in The Financial Times, citing veteran YouTube staff, the short-video platform Shorts “risks cannibalising its core business”.

Google recently announced that Shorts now has more than 2 billion logged-in monthly users, giving it an edge over competitors like TikTok and Instagram Reels.

“Recent YouTube strategy meetings have discussed the risk that long-form videos, which produce more revenue for the company, are ‘dying out’ as a format,” the report mentioned late on Sunday.

YouTube staff feels that “content creators are making fewer long-form videos — driven by a lack of consumer appetite and commissions from brands that favour short-form content for product placement”.

YouTube says Shorts was “designed to complement, not compete with, all the other formats creators use” on the platform, such as audio and livestreams.

YouTube’s ad revenue, though improved, had been on a downward year-over-year slide for three straight quarters.

The company is still figuring out how to earn more ad money from Shorts.

The latest YouTube Shorts usage is up from 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users for YouTube Shorts announced last year.

In its results for the second quarter (Q2) of 2023, Google reported that YouTube brought in $7.67 billion in advertising revenue.

This is 4 per cent higher than the same period last year.

The company introduced advertising on Shorts late last year.

YouTube now has to support Shorts as it gains immense popularity, like investing in creators and incentivising them to make exclusive content.

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YouTube to add support for RSS uploads

It also puts YouTube Music ahead of Spotify in terms of private RSS feed support…reports Asian Lite News

YouTube product lead Steve McLendon has confirmed that the platform will add support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) uploads for podcasters by the end of the year, among other updates.  The new feature has been in beta testing as a strategic, invite-only pilot since earlier this year, reports TechCrunch.

An RSS feed is an online file that contains details about every piece of content a site has published — simply a file that contains all your podcast’s information. The company also confirmed that it’s rolling out support for podcasts on YouTube Music by the end of the year.

The company earlier announced that podcasts would be added to its music streaming service in the US across iOS, Android, and the web, but it had not yet expanded to other markets, the report said.

Moreover, YouTube announced that users will be able to add RSS feeds to their library within YouTube Music, including private feeds.  According to the report, this would put YouTube Music on par with standalone podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and others. It also puts YouTube Music ahead of Spotify in terms of private RSS feed support.

Meanwhile, YouTube has announced that it is testing a new feature on Android that will allow users to search for a song on the platform by humming. “We’re experimenting with the ability for folks to search for a song on YouTube by humming or recording a song that’s currently being played,” the company wrote on the ‘YouTube test features and experiments’ page.

Users in the experiment can toggle from YouTube voice search to the new song search feature, and hum or record the song they are searching for over three seconds in order for the song to be identified.

ALSO READ-Meta Launches 100-Language Multilingual Speech Translation

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Report claims YouTube advertisers harvesting data from kids

According to an Adalytics report, dozens of major ad tech and data broker companies are receiving data from viewers of “made for kids” YouTube videos who clicked on an ad…reports Asian Lite News

Google-owned YouTube is serving ads from many “adult” Fortune 500 advertisers and major media agencies on YouTube channels that are labeled as “made for kids,” a new report from ad quality transparency platform Adalytics has alleged.

These include major brands such as Mars, Procter & Gamble, Ford, Colgate-Palmolive, Samsung, and many others, the report claimed.

“The viewers of ‘made for kids’ YouTube videos appear to be clicking on ads, and brands’ websites “are harvesting and sharing meta-data on those viewers with dozens of data brokers upon click through”.

This raises the possibility that brands have “data poisoned” their first party datasets with data derived from thousands of viewers of “made for kids” videos, the report claimed.

The report further said that some companies appear to be scraping or exfiltrating Google-generated user identifiers from viewers of “made for kids” videos who had clicked an ad.

This could hypothetically prevent Google from being able to fully respond to “right to know” or “right to delete” requests under privacy laws such as the GDPR or CCPA.

It is unclear if Google is aware of this situation, or if it is a form of “data leak,” the report mentioned.

In response to the report,  Dan Taylor, Vice President, Global Ads at Google, said that Google works tirelessly to provide a safer experience for kids and teens online.

“Adalytics released a deeply flawed and uninformed report about how we manage advertising on made for kids content on YouTube, and our privacy policies for people under the age of 18 across our platforms,” Taylor added.

In September 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the People of the State of New York (NY) alleged that YouTube “collected kid’s personal information without parental consent”, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). YouTube’s owner (Google) agreed to pay $170 million to settle the allegations.

Google said that the new report failed to substantiate claims that “we are in violation of government regulations, such as COPPA, or our own policies around ads personalisation”.

“We have strict ads privacy protections in place on made for kids content, regardless of a user’s age,” the company added.

“This report falsely claims that the presence of cookies indicates a privacy breakdown. The opposite is true, and the report fails to show otherwise,” it added.

According to an Adalytics report, dozens of major ad tech and data broker companies are receiving data from viewers of “made for kids” YouTube videos who clicked on an ad.

“These include several companies who paid penalties for COPPA related enforcements, such as Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and OpenX. Foreign-owned companies such as TikTok are also receiving meta-data from viewers of “made for kids” content from advertisers’ websites,” the report alleged.

Google said that it does not link “cookies to the viewing of made for kids content for advertising purposes, and a viewer’s activity on made for kids content can’t be used for ads personalisation”.

“The cookies identified in this report are encrypted and not usable by another tech company, advertiser, publisher or a data broker. These cookies do not enable brand advertisers to identify who a user is or what video they viewed. We limit age-sensitive ads from appearing next to kids’ content,” Google stressed.

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