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YouTube Exec Testifies Platform Prioritizes Viewer Value Over Maximizing Time
YouTube's VP of engineering denies addiction intent, stating the platform aims to maximize viewer value amid lawsuits alleging harm to young users' mental health.
- A YouTube executive testified that the company's goal was to provide viewer value, not addiction, dismissing claims that features like autoplay aimed to increase binge-watching.
- The plaintiffs' attorney argued that the executive's compensation was tied to increasing user engagement, encouraging compulsive use among young people.
- The trial will determine if YouTube and Meta deliberately designed platforms to cause mental health issues in a 20-year-old heavy social media user suing them.
52 Articles
52 Articles
YouTube’s Top Engineer Says App Not Designed to Encourage Binge Watching, Addiction
LOS ANGELES—Taking the stand in a landmark jury trial considering whether social media giants are designing their platforms to addict young people despite known harms, YouTube’s vice president of engineering testified in Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 23 that the algorithm and design features he oversees are not made to be addictive. Referencing a cache of recently unsealed internal documents—slide presentations, research, and email chains d…
Executive Defends YouTube in Social Media ‘Addiction’ Trial
A landmark court case battling social media ‘addiction’ resumed on Monday, February 23rd with the YouTube Vice President of Engineering insisting that the Alphabet-owned company’s goal was to provide value to users, rather than hooking them into harmful binge-viewing habits. Cristos Goodrow was called to defend the company’s self-styled “big, hairy, audacious goal.” Set more than a decade ago after the restructuring of Google, the objective was …
‘YouTube designed to give viewer value’: YouTube VP denies platform designed for addiction in US trial
The social media addiction trial in Los Angeles has resumed, with YouTube’s VP denying claims that their platform was built to give people the most value. The trial is set to last until late March, when the jury will decide whether Meta and YouTube are to be held responsible for the mental health problems.
A YouTube leader assured on Monday that the platform preferred the usefulness of its content for Internet users to the maximization of the time spent on the site, at the time of the third week of the social media addiction trial.
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