YouTube

If you often fall asleep while watching a video, you can try YouTube Premium’s experimental sleep timer through September 2nd. It pauses your content after a certain amount of time, so that way autoplay doesn’t eat up all your internet data for the month.

Invitations are going out for Google’s community-led pilot to moderate misinformation by letting users append highly-rated notes to confusing or inaccurate videos. Per 9to5Google, you can sign up to participate on mobile in the US by clicking your profile pic in the app, then selecting “help inform viewers” under general settings.

Let us know in the comments if you’re seeing notes on videos.

While the platform currently cuts away from live content to display video ads, YouTube is now experimenting with live mid-rolls that will instead launch and run alongside the broadcast in Picture-in-Picture mode.

That should be less disruptive for viewers, and may also dissuade them from installing adblockers to avoid paying for YouTube’s ad-free premium service — something YouTube has been cracking down on.

The statement was included in a larger Associated Press report about the controversies MrBeast is dealing with:

“When Jimmy was a teenager he acted like many kids and used inappropriate language while trying to be funny,” a spokesperson for the YouTuber said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Over the years he has repeatedly apologized and has learned that increasing influence comes with increased responsibility to be more aware and more sensitive to the power of language. After making some bad jokes and other mistakes when he was younger, as an adult he has focused on engaging with the MrBeast community to work together on making a positive impact around the world.”

The change, which goes into effect as of today, gives creators seven days to appeal a suspension for “certain policy violations” before that suspension goes into effect, according to “Rob” on the YouTube team.

“This won’t be available for all suspensions to start with, but we hope to expand this over time,” Rob says.

Splice got itself in some trouble a couple weeks ago when it issued a YouTube copyright strike against Krystle Delgado, a music attorney who showed one of the company’s sample licenses on screen. Splice wised up and retracted the strike last week, CEO Kakul Srivastava tell me. “We fundamentally support the rights of creators to express themselves – even if we disagree,” she wrote in an email to Delgado.

For her part, Delgado confirmed that the strike was indeed retracted by YouTube, and tells me that she wishes she could have spoken to to Srivastava directly before Splice’s lawyers escalated the situation.

As always, I will remind everyone that copyright law is the only functional speech regulation on the internet, and using it to chill speech or block criticism never tends to go well!

Creators like MKBHD, Logan Paul, Kai Cenat, Pokimane, and Valkyrae will vie for $1,000,000, according to MrBeast. He says the video will go live on Saturday.

In June, MrBeast posted a group photo featuring the creators in the competition — there are a lot more that I didn’t name here!

According to Not a Tesla App, the 2024.26 update in testing has features like parental controls that limit speed and acceleration or notify about late-night drives, an AQI symbol for poor local air quality, and scheduled charging.

It also adds built-in apps for Amazon Music and YouTube Music streaming in the US if you have Premium Connectivity or an active Wi-Fi connection.

Today the company rolled out an expanded takedown requests process for AI content following its initial announcement back in November.

But requesting removal doesn’t guarantee YouTube will comply. The company says it will consider things like whether the content could be mistaken as real and whether it’s parody or satire.

YouTube is experimenting with the ability to search for videos via Google Lens, with a “small percentage” of Android users being enrolled to test the feature.

The description says tapping the Lens button in the YouTube search bar will retrieve videos based on the picture you snap — which doesn’t sound particularly useful but might provide some entertainment value.

In addition to announcing wider availability of its thumbnail testing tool, YouTube is launching its skip feature it started testing last month. You can learn more details on that and a few other features (including creator QR codes) in this video.

The video “We Schooled Hundreds of Teachers” was funded in part by Stand Together, an organization founded by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, reports Fast Company.

The video profiles Ron Clark Academy, a private school in Atlanta. For decades, the Koch family has worked to undermine public schools. “Education alternatives” are one of Stand Together’s key issues.

And yet, Matty Benedetto has amassed millions of subscribers with his Unnecessary Inventions. Tune into my new video series, Full Frame: Creators, where I spend a day with a creator to see how they have found success on the internet.

Hank Green is mad about the price of YouTube Premium, because it’s more expensive than Premium is everywhere else. The reason why is all about buttons and links and app store commissions, and you definitely don’t need Rocket Money to solve this problem, but Green is right about the bigger point here.

The lesson, as always: listen to Hank Green.

While the issue seems fixed today, Reddit users reported that and other problems, like videos that couldn’t be unmuted, in a thread spotted by 9to5Google. The solution was apparently disabling ad blockers. We saw the same behavior at The Verge.

It’s not clear if this was related to YouTube’s ongoing crackdown on ad blockers, or problems with the ad blockers themselves.