We have all been disappointed by clickbait at some point, usually by the press, media, and influencers focused on optimizing for the algorithm and farming clicks instead of delivering useful information. YouTube is one of the biggest entertainment apps today, and it suffers from rampant clickbaiting as well. Google is finally cracking down on this problem, starting with YouTube in India.

Cickbait isn’t well defined, and every platform has its own technical definition, but broadly, any title that tempts users to click when the content is unrelated or simply doesn’t deliver would qualify. In an announcement for India on Wednesday, Google said it will start “increasing enforcement” against such clickbait. Specifically, the platform hopes to sanitize the sections related to breaking news and current events (via TechCrunch) so users aren’t tricked, misled, or left frustrated.

In YouTube’s terms, clickbait would be any video that doesn’t address the topic raised in the title, or a thumbnail that promises political news even though the video doesn’t include any. The platform hopes this move will benefit users looking for important or timely information, and we believe fewer disappointing clicks will also make users trust YouTube more.

The ambitious plan still lacks specificity

Rolling out slowly

While the announcement defines clickbait, it remains vague about the kind of videos that will be affected. TechCrunch notes that YouTube plans to focus on news and current event videos, but it doesn’t say if something like sports events would also count as a news or current event. Moreover, ambiguity surrounds how the company will compare video content to thumbnails and titles at scale. We suppose manual review is out of the question since millions of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day.

Notwithstanding the lack of specificity, this move comes amid YouTube’s prior (and ongoing) attempts to dissuade ad-blocking browser extensions and clone platforms like Vanced, which offered free access to YouTube Premium features, including some older UI settings. However, it appears Google is more focused on internal housekeeping this time.

YouTube’s announcement about the clickbait policy change says the company will give uploaders time to adjust to these changes. So, clickbait content will be purged without issuing a strike to the creator initially. As the change rolls out, YouTube will shift its focus to new video uploads. Although the efforts are starting with India, we hope to see these rolled out in other countries as well, to tackle the growing clickbait problem.