YouTube Partner

The American online video sharing and social media platform YouTube has had social impact in many fields, with some individual videos of the site having directly shaped world events. It is the world's largest video hosting website and second most visited website according to both Alexa Internet and Similarweb, and used by 81% of U.S. adults.

Constituting one of the world's most popular search engines, YouTube enables inexpensive distribution of educational content, including course material from educational institutions and "how to" videos from individuals. Worldwide video access has spurred innovation by enabling geographically distributed individuals to build upon each other's work, to collaborate, or to crowdsource.

YouTube has facilitated engagement between institutions and individuals, such as between universities and prospective students, and between businesses and employees. Also, some YouTube videos increase awareness of social issues (such as bullying, suicide and LGBT issues), allow broadened social contact (especially important for the elderly or mobility-impaired), and overcome stereotypes of minorities and minority viewpoints. However, other videos have included potentially harmful content, such as those triggering audiences, inducing self-harm, or inspiring additional bullying or suicides. Further, the website's recommendation algorithm has been found to recommend harmful content to children, and has promoted dangerous practices such as the Tide Pod challenge.

YouTube has become an important "visual journalism" platform, both for conventionally produced content from established news organizations and for citizen eyewitness contributions. Certain independent or alternative news organizations have established YouTube channels that reach a wider audience than traditional broadcast television.

YouTube has promoted democracy through free expression of individual political views, for example enabling Arab Spring protest videos to transcend national boundaries, causing certain regimes to censor or ban the website. YouTube has affected conventional politics, becoming even more important than direct mail in political campaigning, with politicians and governments using the website to directly engage citizens and promote policies. However, its recommendation algorithm has been shown to recommend extremist content, especially far-right and conspiracy propaganda, leading to claims that YouTube has been used as a tool for political radicalization. Concurrently, the website has been criticized for inadequately policing against false or misleading content.

YouTube streaming data (video views) has been used to gauge consumer opinion for marketing decisions. Celebrities and large companies, especially major music labels, have used YouTube as a focused advertising tool for targeted mass marketing and audience growth by placing banner ads and by contracting with video producers for embedded-product marketing. Conversely, individuals have partnered with advertisers to grow their own audiences, the "Partner Program" enabling individual content creators to monetize videos and even earn livelihoods directly from posting content, with top earners exceeding $30–50 million per year.

Effects on culture

Education and proliferation of knowledge

In his 2010 TED Talk on crowd-accelerated innovation, TED curator Chris Anderson preliminarily noted that human brains are "uniquely wired" to decode high-bandwidth video, and that unlike written text, face-to-face communication of the type that online videos convey has been "fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution." Referring to several YouTube contributors, Anderson asserted that "what Gutenberg did for writing, online video can now do for face-to-face communication," that it's not far-fetched to say that online video will dramatically accelerate scientific advance, and that video contributors may be about to launch "the biggest learning cycle in human history." (click on "Show transcript" tab) • Correspondin
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from official TED channel was titled "How YouTube is driving innovation."

Khan Academy founder Salman Khan, a former hedge fund analyst, grew YouTube video tutoring sessions for his cousin in 2006 into what ''Forbes'' Michael Noer called "the largest school in the world"—a non-profit with ten million students and a reported $7 million annual operating budget (2012). By the end of 2013, Khan Academy's network of YouTube channels grew to 26,000 no-fee videos that collectively had been viewed 372 million times. Noer reasoned that technology had finally become poised to disrupt how people learn, given the advent of widespread broadband, low costs to create and distribute content, rapidly proliferating mobile devices, a shift in social norms to accept the efficacy of online learning and a generation of tech-savvy people willing to embrace it, with students watching lectures and working on their own schedule at their own pace.

Certain public school systems, non-profits, and charter schools use YouTube videos of outstanding educators in the training and professional development of teachers.

About 2,500 TED video lectures—delivery of which having been described by technology journalist Steven Levy as "an aspirational peak for the thinking set"—have collectively been viewed almost 250 million times on YouTube's "TEDtalksDirector" channel's network.

At a more micro level, individuals use YouTube to carry "how to" videos sharing their knowledge in areas such as cosmetics, and companies such as Ford Models use "how-to" videos to build their brands.

Studies by public health researchers have expressed concern about the impact of healthcare information available on YouTube, citing the potential harm to patients if inaccurate or dubious claims are presented as facts.

Searchable information repository

Beyond being what a Forrester Research analyst characterized as the largest video ''platform'' on the globe, as of January 2012 YouTube was also the world's second most popular search engine. However, YouTube keyword searches are confined to metadata—video titles and labels—rather than the video content itself.

Spurring innovation through distributed communities

In the year following YouTube's 2005 launch, some early video creators gained large viewing audiences, while others created small, tight communities among mutual watchers. In 2010 TED curator Chris Anderson described a phenomenon by which geographically distributed individuals in a certain field share their independently developed skills in YouTube videos, thus challenging others to improve their own skills, and spurring invention and evolution in that field. '' Legion of Extraordinary Dancers'' producer Jon M. Chu described "a whole global laboratory online" in which "kids in Japan are taking moves from a YouTube video created in Detroit, building on it within days and releasing a new video, while teenagers in California are taking the Japanese video and remixing it with a Philly flair to create a whole new dance style in itself." Such fields include dance and music, with Chu saying the Internet was causing dance to evolve, and journalist Virginia Heffernan calling certain music videos "a portal into a worldwide microculture".

Originally posted anonymously by a guitarist seeking suggestions on his playing, a 2005 YouTube cover of the "Canon Rock" adaptation of Pachelbel's Canon received millions of views and spawned hundreds of imitators in "a process of influence, imitation and inspiration". Journalist Virginia Heffernan asserted in ''The New York Times'' that such videos have "surprising implications" not only for YouTube, but also for the dissemination of culture and even the future of classical music.

YouTube has provided inventors an audience for market testing their concepts, and a platform—albeit an inherently profitless one—for disseminating innovations more quickly and more widely than writing papers or speaking at conferences. Collaborative "meetings", a global online equivalent of the Homebrew Computer Club, take place virtually, via video.

Three years after Google purchased YouTube and larger production companies had begun to dominate, a ''New York Times Magazine'' journalist said the website was "still incubating novel forms of creative expression and cultivating new audiences" as amateurs continued to create "microgenres" serving niche audiences, collectively creating what she described as an "art scene".

Collaboration and crowdsourcing

In projects such as the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and ''The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers,'' geographically distributed artists were selected based on their individual online video auditions, and assembled on the same stage to perform, respectively, at Carnegie Hall (2009) and at the Academy Awards ceremonies (2010).

A further step is to mix geographically distributed performances into a single work, without the performers ever physically meeting each other. Like-minded or compatibly talented individuals have used Internet communication to overcome geographic separation to create crowdsourced YouTube videos to encourage donations, such as Lisa Lavie's 57-contributor charity collaboration video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube edition)" to benefit victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Als
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(archives). ''The Tokyo Times'' noted J Rice's "We Pray for You" YouTube video, benefitting victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, as an example of a trend to use such crowdsourcing for charitable purposes.

The 2011 film '' Life in a Day,'' a feature-length YouTube-partnered documentary comprising scenes selected from 4,500 hours of amateur video footage from 80,000 submitters, was the first crowdsourced, user-generated film to be shown in cinemas. Director Kevin Macdonald explained that the film "wouldn't have been possible pre-Internet, specifically pre-YouTube".

Broadening awareness of social issues

The anti-bullying It Gets Better Project expanded from a single YouTube video directed to discouraged or suicidal LGBT teens. Within weeks, hundreds of "It Gets Better" response videos were uploaded to the project by people of various levels of celebrity, and, with two months, by U.S. President Barack Obama, White House staff, and several cabinet secretaries. In addition to "flashcard" testimonials by bullying victims and adults' encouragement videos, anti-bullying PSAs have taken the form of YouTube music videos; parenting author Rosalind Wiseman said the creators of one such video, Ahmir's YouTube cover of "Perfect", could "tell (the so-called experts) how it's done." Wiseman criticized a cyberbullying video commissioned to the American Bar Association.

Fifteen-year-old Amanda Todd's video, titled "My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm" and posted to YouTube the month before her suicide, became what the ''National Post'' called an "international sensation" after her death. The resulting extensive media coverage was controversial: though psychologists say there is value in airing related mental health questions, certain headline-grabbing coverage is thought by some possibly to inspire "clusters" of additional suicides. In addition to strong public reaction, legislative action was undertaken almost immediately to study the prevalence of bullying and form a national anti-bullying strategy.

YouTube personalities have used their celebrity status for charitable purposes, such as Tyler Oakley's outspoken support of and raising of tens of thousands of dollars for The Trevor Project, an organization for crisis and suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth.

The 2006 '' Bus Uncle'' video, recording a man's tirade against a fellow Hong Kong bus passenger who had asked him to speak more quietly on his cellphone, inspired a significant amount of social and cultural analysis. Local experts characterized the video as "catching the collective emotional pulse" of a crowded and stressful city in which people do not normally say how they feel.

Effects on values and standards

YouTube was included in ''Entertainment Weekly's'' "100 Greatest" list in 2009—though with the ironic praise, "a safe home for piano-playing cats, celeb goof-ups, and overzealous lip-synchers since 2005". In 2010, citing YouTube's then most viewed video ''Charlie Bit My Finger'' as an example of viewers not choosing what might have traditionally been judged "quality", ''Advertising Age'' journalist Michael Learmonth asserted that for information and entertainment the Internet had both killed and redefined the concept of quality. Learmonth reasoned that online journalism, being based on "greatly diminished economics and expectations", is intrinsically inaccurate and a de-professionalized version of offline journalism. In this vein, GroupM's CEO was quoted as saying there seemed to be a bigger premium on popularity than authority. Concerning these phenomena, the CEO of Associated Content (now Yahoo! Voices) said that people are increasingly comfortable receiving information from unfamiliar sources, and that quality had come to revolve around properly timed usefulness rather than being decided by professionals.
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. Conversely, in 2012 the head of YouTube's programming strategy Ben Relles was quoted as saying that most viral videos were scripted productions that did not go viral serendipitously, and that "the poetics of YouTube favor authenticity over production values."

Personal connection and identity

In 2008, cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch observed that both YouTube vloggers and their viewers can experience a profound sense of connection, the distance and anonymity between them enabling them to avoid the constraining effect of conventional social norms (such as not staring at people). This sense of connection is said to occur in an era of "cultural inversion" in which we are driven to express our individualism and independence, yet still value community and relationships.Alt URLTranscript
. Presentation to Library of Congress.

In 2011, Willow Scobie asserted the anthropological significance of YouTube and noted evidence of a "transformative experience" for some people, and that some could actually identify as being a "YouTuber".

Disruption of conventional media

Discussing music streaming services, music critic Chris Richards wrote in ''The Washington Post'' that YouTube, "a site that never really intended to become a music platform(,) accidentally became our most visited, most variegated music platform". In Richards' view, it achieved this viewership by "situat(ing) a piece of music, and the listening experience, in the greater context of all media, all experience"—referring to the variety of content encountered through its "Up Next" algorithm. Crediting YouTube's mobile accessibility, vast library size, visuality, portability, on-demand convenience, and engagement through comments, Richards called the website's billion+ music visitors per month "a bizarre triumph for a company so eager to obsolesce our televisions".

Within twenty years of its founding, YouTube had disrupted traditional television with its billions of videos catering to niche interests. In the fourth quarter of 2023, 16 of the top 30 audio podcasts were available as YouTube videos—more than twice the fraction of a year earlier. In 2025, in the US, more people watched YouTube on their televisions than Disney+, Prime Video and Netflix. Also by 2025, YouTube had become the second most popular search engine (after Google) and the second most popular social network (after Facebook).

Negative effects on viewers

Videos that frighten or excite children were found to receive the most views, often because of algorithm-driven demand measurement and automated editorial oversight, automated oversight that is thought to be inadequately effective and easy to avoid. Very young children tend to watch the same video many times and were thus found to be particular vulnerable, including to videos with bizarre, sexual, scatological or violent content. Researchers, parents and consumer groups say that, despite YouTube's years of vowing to police inappropriate content, the website's recommendation algorithm and default autoplay feature continue to reach children with "violent imagery, drug references, sexually suggestive sequences and foul, racially charged language", making parental monitoring impractical. Separately, in September 2019 YouTube's owner Google agreed to pay a $170 million fine—exceeding the previous $5.7 million FTC record though only 1.7% of Google's profit for the quarter—for illegally collecting personal information from children without parental consent, in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Some YouTube content creators have used the website's algorithm to gain more views at the cost of endangering viewers' physical safety, such as the Tide Pod challenge Internet meme that dared teenagers to consume pods containing the laundry detergent.

Journalism

A Pew Research Center study found that a new kind of "visual journalism" had developed, in which citizen eyewitnesses and established news organizations share in content creation. The study found that while 51% of the most watched YouTube news videos were produced by news organizations, 39% of the news pieces originally produced by a news organization were posted by users. Pew's deputy director observed that news reporting on YouTube was opening up the flow of information and forging new areas of cooperation and dialogue between citizens and news outlets. Though YouTube executives denied the company itself intends to get into content creation, YouTube's news manager described it as a "catalyst" for creating new original content by developing partnerships with news organizations, the Pew Research study concluding that the website was "becoming an important platform by which people acquire news."

Independent or alternative news organizations, such as Baltimore-based The Real News, Qatar-based Al Jazeera English, or Russian TV Rain have established channels on YouTube that reach a wider audience than traditional broadcast television.

In July–August 2012, YouTube provided the first live-stream coverage of the events in the Summer Olympic Games. In August 2012 YouTube formed its "Elections Hub" that streamed speeches from American national political party conventions and featured content from eight major news organizations.

Direct effect on world events

The YouTube video ''Innocence of Muslims'' (2012), produced privately within the United States, was interpreted by some Muslims as blasphemous in its mocking of Muhammad, and spurred protests and related anti-American violence internationally despite official condemnation of the video by U.S. government officials.

A cellphone camera video showing the 2009 death of Iranian student Neda Agha-Soltan during the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests received a George Polk Award in journalism, the first bestowed to an anonymous work. The video became a symbol of the Iranian opposition movement, the Polk Award's curator saying that the video "became such an important news element in and of itself". The award panel said it wanted to acknowledge the role of ordinary citizens, especially in scenarios in which professional reporters are restricted.

Videos of al-Qaeda militant Anwar al-Awlaki, including some urging attacks against the United States, were posted to YouTube. Though YouTube removed those videos that incited terrorism in response to appeals from U.S. Congressmen, it is thought that Awlaki's videos were in part responsible for inspiring certain viewers to violent acts.

A United Arab Emirates (UAE) court in 2013 sentenced eight individuals to as much as one year imprisonment for uploading a mock documentary YouTube video spoofing a supposed " gangsta culture" of UAE teens, but portraying the teens as mild-mannered, for example, throwing sandals as weapons. The government said the individuals "defamed the UAE society's image abroad" and cited a 2012 UAE cybercrimes law prohibiting use of information technology in a way "liable to endanger state security." The imprisonments provoked criticism from the Emirates Centre for Human Rights, which asserted the case exposed the country's problems with due legal process and restrictive Internet laws.

"Propaganda operatives" from terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS, Daesh or ISIS) published propaganda and recruiting videos on YouTube, causing law enforcement agencies to work closely with social media companies to take countermeasures, including quickly removing gruesome content or violations of anti-terror laws, and suspending user accounts. A number of government agencies have been granted YouTube "trusted flagger" status to prioritize the agencies' reporting of dangerous or illegal content. Faced with these anti-terrorist countermeasures, one propaganda operative acknowledged in September 2014 that his followers' online efforts were "a disaster."

Engagement between people and institutions

Engagement between citizens and government

In at least the CNN/YouTube presidential debates (2007) and the NBC News YouTube Democratic candidates debate (2016),Federal News Service transcript. ordinary people and prominent YouTubers submitted questions to U.S. presidential candidates via YouTube video. Remarking that YouTube "put power in the hands of the camera holder", ''New York Times'' journalist Katharine Q. Seelye noted that because visual images can be more powerful than written words, videos have the potential to elicit emotional responses from the candidates and frame the election in new ways. Quoting a techPresident co-founder as saying that Internet video was changing the political landscape, Seelye wrote that most U.S. presidential campaigns were now fully engaged with video, with seven of the sixteen 2008 presidential candidates announcing their campaigns on YouTube. Campaigns allowed their videos to be embedded, critiqued, and recut per YouTube's technical features, thus surrendering control over the context of their videos. Though YouTube had first been presented as a way for campaigns to engage youthful voters, the videos were said soon after the 2008 election to have profoundly affected popular perception across other demographics and had become more important than direct mail.

Though television advertising still dominated how 2012 U.S. political campaigns initially reached voters—with only about 10% of advertising budgets being directed at the Internet—the YouTube platform provided quick communication and engaged people in a "one-click" approach to actively participate by volunteering, sharing content or pledging financial support. The director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution said that individuals' sharing videos through trusted networks adds credibility over conventional direct ads.

Various government entities, such as the U.S. Congress and the Vatican in early 2009, began to use YouTube to directly disseminate information by video. The White House's official YouTube channel was found in 2012 to be the seventh top news organization producer on YouTube. Barack Obama's U.S. presidency, the first to begin (2009) after YouTube gained popularity, was quickly noted for its "overall virtuosity on the visual Internet" and "nonstop cinematography".

Paradoxically, the burgeoning presence of digital media did not coarsen public figures' behavior, but instead by 2009 appeared to have induced a cautious reserve attributed to a mindful avoidance of possible mockery by video parodists; "avoiding a YouTube moment" had become part of the political vernacular before the website's tenth birthday (2015). Whereas politicians became more known and accessible than a decade previously, politicians also learned to by-pass undesirable questions from traditional media by using self-produced videos to communicate with the electorate directly. Extensive advance vetting of politicians' public utterances led ''The Washington Post's'' Chris Cillizza to assert in 2015 that "spontaneity in politics has been killed—or at least mortally wounded—by YouTube."

In November 2013, a video, "There is a Way Forward", was posted to the YouTube channel of Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

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