You Tube CEO claims it has 1.8 registered users watching videos each month

Susan Wojcicki the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of You Tube claimed that 1.8 billion registered users are watching You Tube videos each month and this does not even include those watching who have no account.

Wojcicki made the announcement at You Tube's Brandcast presentation. She announced some of You Tube's other successes as well.

Record setting views

Beyonce had a record 41 million livestream views at Coachella. A video of the event is appended.

Another music video "Despacito" had more than 5 billion views as of the end of April. Variety reports: "The official video of the catchy Spanish-language track, featuring Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee, on Wednesday surpassed 5 billion views on YouTube — becoming the first video in the platform’s history to hit that watermark." The video, in Spanish, is appended. The company claimed to have had 1.5 billion logged in viewers as of the middle of last year.

Wojcicki indirectly discusses problems with You Tube

There have been critics of You Tube allowing inappropriate kids videos on the platform as well as conspiracy theories.

Wojcicki said: “This is the impact of an open platform: it brings the world together in ways that were just not possible before. But we’ve also seen that with openness comes challenges, as some have tried to take advantage of our services. It is incredibly important to me and to everyone at YouTube that we grow responsibly.”

The inappropriate kids videos

Wojcicki mentioned that she is making changes for a You Tube Kids option and promised to hire 10,000 moderators. However, that still seems to be in progress. Wojcicki said: “There is not a playbook for how open platforms operate at our scale. But the way I think about it is that it’s critical that we’re on the right side of history.”

Conspiracy theories

You Tube is also home to wild conspiracy theories. A Verge article of February 21st this year notes that the number one trending video in the morning was based on a false conspiracy theory which suggested that a survivor of the Parkland high school shooting is an actor. After the video received more than 200,000 views the company finally removed the video.

In an interview with CNN, David Hogg the 17-year-old victim of the theories noted that he was simply a witness to the events, contrary to the allegations in the theories populating YouTube. "I'm not a crisis actor," Hogg told CNN's Anderson Cooper on AC360. "I'm someone who had to witness this and live through this and I continue to be having to do that."

Previously published in Digital Journal