Social impact of YouTube

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.

[10] 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"[11]—have collectively been viewed almost 250 million times on YouTube's "TEDtalksDirector" channel's network.

[13] 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.

[3] 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.

[18] 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.

[22] In projects such as the YouTube Symphony Orchestra[24] and The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers,[17] 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)[24] and at the Academy Awards ceremonies (2010).

[29] Within weeks, hundreds of "It Gets Better" response videos were uploaded to the project by people of various levels of celebrity,[29] and, with two months, by U.S. President Barack Obama, White House staff, and several cabinet secretaries.

[32] 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.

"[3] 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).

[38] 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".

[47] 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.

"[51] 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.

[63] Though promoting awareness of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") was a main topic,[63] the meeting more generally concerned ways in which government could connect with the younger "YouTube Generation".

[65] Obama followed in January 2015 by arranging to be interviewed by three of the most popular YouTube content creators in what a White House spokesman described as "an effort to engage as many Americans as possible in various venues".

[67] In 2021, the Biden administration paid as much as $1,000 per month to influencers who promote COVID-19 vaccines to their followers, consistent with a 2018 study finding that young people are more likely to trust advice of their favorite content creator than a mainstream celebrity.

"[72] A 2012 Pew Research Center study explicitly found it noteworthy that protest was the second most popular topic on YouTube, but was not among the leading subjects on conventional network evening news.

[73] In the Arab Spring (2010- ), protestors uploaded videos showing protests and political commentary,[47] with sociologist Philip N. Howard describing a "cascade effect" through which personal content, more so than centralized ideology, spilled over national boundaries through social networks.

[74] Howard quoted an activist's succinct description that organizing the political unrest involved "us(ing) Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.

"[81] Politico's Scott Wong described the video, with 84 million YouTube views by its 17th day, as "the latest example of social media changing the policy debate and political dynamic on Capitol Hill.

[85] In The New York Times Kevin Roose described "countless" stories of "an aimless young man—usually white, frequently interested in video games—(who) visits YouTube looking for direction or distraction and is seduced by a community of far-right creators".

[85] Research conducted by the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and presented at the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency 2020 used information from the earlier Data & Society research and the Anti-Defamation League to categorize the levels of extremism of 360 YouTube channels and tracked users over 11 years by analysing 72 million comments, 2 million video recommendations, and 10,000 channel recommendations.

[103] According to Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, content on such platforms as YouTube and Facebook are being used to spread disinformation, promote historical denialism, and affect the integrity of elections.

[114] In September 2021, more than a year after YouTube said it would take down misinformation about the coronavirus vaccines, the accounts of six out of twelve anti-vaccine activists identified by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate were still searchable and still posting videos.

[118] As such denials became untenable, using new tactics that evade YouTube's policies to combat misinformation, content shifted to asserting that climate solutions are not workable, saying global warming is harmless or even beneficial, and accusing the environmental movement of being unreliable.

[118] The Washington Post reported that a disproportionate share—8 of 20 in April 2012—of YouTube's most subscribed channels feature minorities, contrasting with mainstream American television, in which the stars are largely white.

[3] In the year following its 2005 formation, YouTube, with its display of view counts, was likened to "a survey of cultural whims", whose more popular artists attracted the interest of established production companies.

[134] Later in 2013, Forbes' Katheryn Thayer noted that, though booking the right concert venues and radio and television stations once propelled artists to fame, social media activity had become "unquestionably important".

[16] By June 2006, recognized Hollywood and music industry firms had begun to establish formal business ties with "homegrown" YouTube talent—the first believed to be comedian blogger Brooke "Brookers" Brodack (through Carson Daly),[136] then singer Justin Bieber (through Usher),[137] and physician-become-political satirist Bassem Youssef (through an Egyptian television network).

[78][79] Old media celebrities also moved into the website at the invitation of a YouTube management that witnessed early content creators accruing substantial followings, and perceived audience sizes potentially larger than that attainable by television.

[142] In 2016, YouTube's demonetization of user videos that had "controversial or sensitive subjects and events ... even if graphic imagery is not shown”—thereby disallowing ad revenue—angered content creators who perceived the policy as "rampant censorship" and inspired a #YouTubeIsOverParty hashtag on social media.