YouTube will crack down on ‘egregious clickbait,’ starting in India

Clickbait videos have always been annoying, but there are times when they can be downright harmful. YouTube has vowed to strengthen its enforcement efforts when it comes to dealing with “egregious clickbait” on its website, particularly those that cover — or pretend to cover — breaking news and current events. The website describes egregious clickbait as “videos where the title or thumbnail promises viewers something that the video doesn’t deliver.”

YouTube says these videos leave viewers “feeling tricked, frustrated, or even misled” if they come to the website looking for truthful and timely information on important issues. If you’ve ever watched a clickbait video, you’d know that’s definitely true. You may have trained yourself on being able to spot and skip them over the years, but some people might still not know the difference between clickbait and legitimate content.

One example of egregious clickbait, according to YouTube, is if a video says “the president resigned!” without actually addressing the president’s resignation. Misleading thumbails are considered egregious clickbait, as well. If a thumbnail reads “top political news” and the video doesn’t contain any political news, then it will also be subjected to YouTube’s enforcement action.

The website will start cracking down on clickbait videos in India — it didn’t say how it will expand from there, but we’ve asked it for more information. For now, it will delete any video that violates this policy without issuing strikes. After it goes through old videos, it will then prioritize new uploads, presumably so that they don’t reach more people that they should.