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Social impact of YouTube

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YouTube[2], a prominent online platform, has a far-reaching social impact that extends to various domains. It acts as a conduit for diverse expressions, ranging from political activism[3], comedy, education, to social connection. YouTube also plays a pivotal role in raising social awareness and challenging stereotypes. Its significance in promoting democracy is evident from the way it fosters free expression and political engagement. In addition, it’s a vital tool for visual journalism, with both traditional news outlets and citizen journalists contributing content. YouTube’s influence on marketing strategies, through consumer[4] opinion and targeted advertising[1], is another key aspect. Furthermore, it helps preserve and promote diverse cultures via shared video content.

Terms definitions
1. ↑ targeted advertising.
1 Targeted advertising is a marketing method that focuses on delivering promotional content to specific audiences. This strategy involves gathering and analyzing user data to tailor ads to individuals' interests, behaviors, and demographics. There are several types of targeted advertising, which include internet service providers tracking website visits, search engine marketing, and using platforms like Google's Search and Display Network.The technique also extends to social media, with platforms harnessing behavioral targeting and geotargeting. For instance, Facebook uses micro-targeting based on user data. Additionally, there are various targeted advertising techniques, such as content, contextual, technical, time, sociodemographic, and geographical targeting.Moreover, targeted advertising is prevalent in mobile and television sectors. Mobile ads utilize consumer location and time, while television ads focus on demographics and interests. Cable boxes and over-the-top video platforms also facilitate targeted advertising. All these methods aim to increase advertising efficiency and relevance.
2 "Targeted advertising" is a marketing strategy that involves gathering and analyzing user data to deliver personalized ads relevant to individual consumers. This strategy can be implemented across various channels such as search engines, social media, television, and mobile devices. Companies, internet service providers, and websites collect user data like preferences, behaviors, and demographics to make ads more relevant. Platforms like Google Ads allow advertisers to reach specific audiences, even retargeting specific website visitors. Social media platforms leverage user data for personalized advertising, allowing advertisers to target users based on interests, likes, demographics, and other factors. Television ads can target viewers based on age, gender, location, and interests, while mobile advertising uses location and time data to serve ads tailored to consumer schedules and environments.
2. ↑ YouTube ( YouTube )
1 YouTube is a global online video-sharing platform founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. The platform allows users to upload, view, share, and comment on a wide variety of video content. Since its creation, YouTube has grown exponentially, setting significant milestones like reaching over a million daily videos watched and 48 hours of new videos uploaded per minute. Its business model revolves around generating revenue from advertisements and paid content, including a subscription-based service called YouTube Premium for ad-free viewing. The platform also offers a range of video categories, impacting popular culture, internet trends, and creating celebrities. However, it has faced criticism for issues like misinformation and copyright violations. Technologically, YouTube supports various video codecs and resolutions, and it introduces features for improved user experience. The platform is localized in over 100 countries, offering features for areas with slow internet connectivity.
2 YouTube is a global online platform for sharing and viewing video content, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It has grown to become one of the world's most popular video sharing platforms with a market share of around 43% as of 2010. It is well-known for its impact on internet trends, creating celebrities and its influence on popular culture. YouTube generates revenue through ads, paid content, and its ad-free service, YouTube Premium. Despite criticisms for spreading misinformation and privacy violations, it continues to grow and evolve, with significant technological advancements and feature enhancements. It also ventured into mobile apps and network TV. In recent years, there has been a surge in usage, driven by milestones like one billion hours of daily video watched and the launch of new features such as YouTube Kids and YouTube Shorts.
Social impact of YouTube (Wikipedia)
This article is about YouTube's impact on the world outside the website itself. For characteristics of the website itself or its contributors, see YouTube and YouTuber.

The American online video sharing and social media platform YouTube has had social impact in many fields, with some individual videos of the site having directly shaped world events. It is the world's largest video hosting website and second most visited website according to both Alexa Internet and Similarweb, and used by 81% of U.S. adults.

Logo of YouTube since 2017

Some have called this the biggest and the smallest stage. The most public place in the world, from the privacy from our own homes: YouTube has been used for many things: a political soapbox, a comedian's stage, a religious pulpit, a teacher's podium, or just a way to reach out to the next door neighbor or across the world. To people we love, to people we want to love, or people we don't even know.

-Michael Wesch, cultural anthropologist
"An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube"
Presentation to the Library of Congress

Constituting one of the world's most popular search engines, YouTube enables inexpensive distribution of educational content, including course material from educational institutions and "how to" videos from individuals. Worldwide video access has spurred innovation by enabling geographically distributed individuals to build upon each other's work, to collaborate, or to crowdsource.

YouTube has facilitated engagement between institutions and individuals, such as between universities and prospective students, and between businesses and employees. Also, some YouTube videos increase awareness of social issues (such as bullying, suicide and LGBT issues), allow broadened social contact (especially important for the elderly or mobility-impaired), and overcome stereotypes of minorities and minority viewpoints. However, other videos have included potentially harmful content, such as those triggering audiences, inducing self-harm, or inspiring additional bullying or suicides. Further, the website's recommendation algorithm has been found to recommend harmful content to children, and has promoted dangerous practices such as the Tide Pod Challenge.

YouTube has become an important "visual journalism" platform, both for conventionally produced content from established news organizations and for citizen eyewitness contributions. Certain independent or alternative news organizations have established YouTube channels that reach a wider audience than traditional broadcast television.

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. YouTube has affected conventional politics, becoming even more important than direct mail in political campaigning, with politicians and governments using the website to directly engage citizens and promote policies. However, its recommendation algorithm has been shown to recommend extremist content, especially far-right and conspiracy propaganda, leading to claims that YouTube has been used as a tool for political radicalization. Concurrently, the website has been criticized for inadequately policing against false or misleading political content.

YouTube streaming data (video views) has been used to gauge consumer opinion for marketing decisions. Celebrities and large companies, especially major music labels, have used YouTube as a focused advertising tool for targeted mass marketing and audience growth by placing banner ads and by contracting with video producers for embedded-product marketing. Conversely, individuals have partnered with advertisers to grow their own audiences, the "Partner Program" enabling individual content creators to monetize videos and even earn livelihoods directly from posting content, with top earners exceeding $30–50 million per year.

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