In 2012, clicking on the image of a DVD next to the site logo led to a video about a purported option to order every YouTube video for home delivery on DVD. The next year, the site celebrated its “100th anniversary” with a range of sepia-toned silent, early 1900s-style films, including a parody of Keyboard Cat. In 2010, YouTube temporarily released a “TEXTp” mode which rendered video imagery into ASCII art letters “in order to reduce bandwidth costs by $1 per second.” The next year, when clicking on a video on the main page, the whole page turned upside down, which 7oasis Casino YouTube claimed was a “new layout”.

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  • In December 2024, YouTube introduced new guidelines prohibiting videos with clickbait titles to enhance content quality and combat misinformation.
  • The service continued to evolve in 2015 when YouTube announced YouTube Red, a new premium service that would offer ad-free access to all content on the platform (succeeding the Music Key service released the previous year), premium original series, and films produced by YouTube personalities, as well as background playback of content on mobile devices.
  • Get the official YouTube app on iPhones and iPads.

YouTube Kids is an American children’s video app developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. In 2016, YouTube introduced an option to watch every video on the platform in 360-degree mode with Snoop Dogg. The next year, YouTube added a music button to the video bar that played samples from “Sandstorm” by Darude. A video of two presenters announcing the nominated videos streamed live for 12 hours.

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  • In February 2015, Nintendo agreed to share the revenue with the video creators through the Nintendo Creators Program.
  • Established media, news, and entertainment corporations have also created and expanded their visibility to YouTube channels to reach bigger audiences.
  • Google’s acquisition launched newfound interest in video-sharing sites; IAC, which now owned Vimeo, focused on supporting the content creators to distinguish itself from YouTube.
  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, when most of the world was under stay-at-home orders, usage of services like YouTube significantly increased.
  • The user must go through age verification via payment, scanned ID, or selfie to access all features if they are detected to be a minor.
  • In December 2024, YouTube added the functionality of automatic language dubbing, which uses AI to produce translations of videos into different languages.

YouTube has cited the effectiveness of Content ID as one of the reasons why the site’s rules were modified in December 2010 to allow some users to upload videos of unlimited length. An independent test in 2009 uploaded multiple versions of the same song to YouTube and concluded that while the system was “surprisingly resilient” in finding copyright violations in the audio tracks of videos, it was not infallible. In June 2007, YouTube began trials of a system for automatic detection of uploaded videos that infringe copyright. On November 1, 2016, the dispute with GEMA was resolved, with Google content ID being used to allow advertisements to be added to videos with content protected by GEMA. Three successful complaints for copyright infringement against a user account will result in the account and all of its uploaded videos being deleted.
YouTube began offering free-to-view movie titles to its users in November 2018; selections of new movies are added and others removed, unannounced each month. YouTube Movies & TV is a video on demand (VOD) service that offers movies and television shows for purchase or rental, depending on availability, along with a selection of movies (encompassing between 100 and 500 titles overall) that are free to stream, with interspersed ad breaks. On May 22, 2018, the music streaming platform named “YouTube Music” was launched for people who mostly listen to music on YouTube. As of September 2019, the app is available in 69 countries, including Hong Kong and Macau, and one province.

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Access to specific videos is sometimes prevented due to copyright and intellectual property protection laws (e.g. in Germany), violations of hate speech, and preventing access to videos judged inappropriate for youth, which is also done by YouTube with the YouTube Kids app and with “restricted mode”. Like TikTok, it gives users access to built-in creative tools, including the possibility of adding licensed music to their videos. As of May 2019update, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of mid-2024update, there were approximately 14.8 billion videos in total. In May 2013, Nintendo began enforcing its copyright ownership and claiming the advertising revenue from video creators who posted screenshots of its games.

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The company stated the decision was in response to experiments which confirmed that smaller YouTube creators were more likely to be targeted in dislike brigading and harassment. On April 9, 2025, YouTube expressed support for the NO FAKES Act of 2025, introduced by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and announced an expansion of its pilot program that is designed to identify content generated by AI. On July 30, 2025, amid the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023 in the United Kingdom, Google announced that it would begin to enforce “age assurance” policies for selected users in the United States as a trial. In April 2024, YouTube announced it would be “strengthening our enforcement on third-party apps that violate YouTube’s Terms of Service, specifically ad-blocking apps”. Users of ad blockers may be given a pop-up warning saying “Video player will be blocked after 3 videos”. Additionally, to compete with TikTok and Instagram Reels, YouTube released YouTube Shorts, a short-form video platform.

Indie creators have built grassroots followings numbering in the thousands at very little cost or effort, while mass retail and radio promotion proved problematic. In some countries, YouTube is blocked for more limited periods of time, such as during periods of unrest, the run-up to an election, or in response to upcoming political anniversaries. As of 2018update, public access to YouTube is blocked by China, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan mostly due to freedom of speech laws. Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to its bandwidth limitations and the site’s potential for distraction. In May 2024, YouTube introduced Playables, a set of around 75 free-to-play games that can be played on the platform. Starting with the Oculus Quest, the app was updated for compatibility with mixed-reality passthrough modes on VR headsets.

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Google stated that it had “begun an extensive review of our advertising policies and have made a public commitment to put in place changes that give brands more control over where their ads appear”. The government demanded assurances that its advertising would “be delivered safely and appropriately”. In March 2007, it struck a deal with the BBC for three channels with BBC content, one for news and two for entertainment. In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales. According to a 2020 study, viewership of far-right videos on YouTube peaked in 2017 and “a growing body of journalistic evidence” suggested that YouTube was radicalizing young men through its recommendation engine, but that such evidence was “fraught with a bias towards sensationalism”. 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.
YouTube was not the first video-sharing site on the Internet; Vimeo was founded in November 2004, though that site remained a side project of its developers from CollegeHumor. Between November 2005 and April 2006, the company raised money from various investors, with Sequoia Capital and Artis Capital Management being the largest two. Karim could not easily find video clips of the incident and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami online, which led to the idea of a video-sharing site. Karim said the inspiration for YouTube came from the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy when Janet Jackson’s breast was briefly exposed by Justin Timberlake during the halftime show. The three were early employees at PayPal and had become wealthy after eBay’s acquisition of the company. Established media, news, and entertainment corporations have also created and expanded their visibility to YouTube channels to reach bigger audiences.