Chances are, you saw the shocking video posted last year by vlogger Logan Paul showing the body of a suicide victim in a forest by Mt. Fuji in Japan.
The video caused an uproar on social media and added to the growing scrutiny over YouTube’s role as a publisher of disturbing content.
Facebook and Twitter have made efforts to stem the flow of misinformation and abusive content. Google’s streaming video platform, however, has been slower to act. Bloomberg's
says:
There's a lot of news video on YouTube. It's a large and growing vertical for them, but it's not seen as being a place people go to for news. It's still seen as a place for ephemeral fun — sort of trivial — and so I don't think people take it quite as seriously... But I do think that as we look at how we should regulate something like Facebook, we'll have to have a similar conversation about YouTube because they have the same fundamental problem.
Shaw and Mark Bergen co-authored the recent article “YouTube’s Plan to Clean Up the Mess That Made It Rich.” The Frame's John Horn spoke with Shaw recently about the changing perception of YouTube.