Google CEO Sundar Pichai said YouTube isn’t quite where the company wants it to be in an interview with Axios on HBO that aired on Sunday. Axios asked Pichai about his reactions to the video site’s scandals and changes.
“We, you know, we rank content based on quality,” Pichai said. “So we are bringing that same notion and approach to YouTube so that we can rank higher quality stuff better and really prevent borderline content. Content which doesn’t exactly violate policies, which need to be removed, but which can still cause harm.”
Axios noted that the interview happened before YouTube made its latest round of policy changes around hate speech.
Last week, YouTube said it was prohibiting videos that promote one group as superior to another, changing recommended videos to exclude more “borderline content,” and limiting monetization for creators who often push the limits of YouTube’s rules. In addition, earlier this month YouTube said it would no longer allow minors to livestream without an adult.
YouTube didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.
The site faced backlash after it refused to take down the channel of prominent conservative personality Stephen Crowder who used homophobic slurs against journalist Carlos Maza, a writer and video host at Vox. YouTube said Crowder’s videos didn’t violate the site’s rules. Following the event, YouTube took steps to ban supremacist and hoax videos– like content denying the Holocaust and Sandy Hook shooting, earlier this month.
