The Government altering YouTube to prioritise its own content is very annoying

[PeachOctopus]

The government has decided to make Youtube prioritise state media organisations over small content creators and so what clips are suggested will be reams of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 clips, instead of your usual small independents.
This seems to be happening to me now, I don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this?
I do watch the BBC news on my television but I like finding alternative channels and small content creators will be pushed to the bottom of the lists.
I know that state TV viewing figures have fallen from 71% population in 2015 to 50% now but their solution is - you must be be exposed to our products not by choice but through a change in the law - is wrong?

YABU - The government should suggest what we should watch
ABU- It is an overreach of state power

Do you have a source for this? I haven't seen anything.

I can’t find anything on this at all. No articles, anything. This would be very big news with articles all over social media if that was the case. Everything about this story seems unlikely. YouTube is a private American company, not owned by the UK government so how can the government “force” it to “prioritise” anything?

This is not happening.

It isn't about govt prioritising "its own content". It is about increasing the salience of traditional media (of all parts of the opinion spectrum - eg telegraph, guardian) in an attempt to combat the flood of misinformation.

The OP is an example of how pervasive misinformation is.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/22/uk-youtube-tiktok-established-media-prominence-misinformation-risk

Proof please?

You say “it’s own content” and then talk about the fact it’s going to prioritise established media including BBC, ITV, Channel 4.

Argue against it if you want. But it’s not simply government’s own content.

The government can’t actually do that. What’s your source for this? It’s possibly your own algorithm- the more you watch of a particular kind of media, the more it will show you. For example, I like cat videos, so I see suggestions for more cat videos.

Just to add, it isn't even a case of introducing something inauthentic in the allocation of salience to this or that content provider. That's because the allocation of salience is already gamed by the tech companies. It isn't wholly organic. The proposed innovation would just be a prosocial tweak to something that is already artificial.

Have you actually thought critically about the things that would need to happen for that to be true?

YouTube is a private company so the Gov would either need to pay or legislate. So what's your evidence of either?

Please tell me.you have just seen something on Facebook or TokTok and are repeating it elsewhere because that's what naive children without critical thinking do

Have you read the guardian article a PP posted? OP is not correct in terms of “state media” but prominence for established media was announced a couple of weeks ago, with the threat of legislation if the tech companies didn’t work with the government on implementing it.

Some of the proposals are here

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/watch-this-space-a-new-strategic-direction-for-uk-media-green-paper-and-public-consultation/watch-this-space-a-new-strategic-direction-for-uk-media-green-paper-and-public-consultation

It's a consultation, not a decision and nothing is saw indicates that it's happening now, so thst was my question: where's the evidence it's happening to OP?

Use a VPN and don't log into your google account. I use Brave browser as well because it blocks ads.

It is possible to mostly escape from google and the things it pushes onto you. Before I quit it, I noticed that my news feed was mostly bbc content, then I learned that the government have organised for more bbc content to be pushed onto users. Whilst mid/dis information is unwanted, I disagree with users not being able to access many sources of information and news. The bbc themselves have given out misinformation before. This government are going to try harder and harder to control the narratives and prevent people from accessing information or discussing issues elsewhere.

I watch YouTube a lot and have never experienced this. Think you need to take your tin foil hat off

Youtube is banned where I am because the government actually do control the media. You can trust me on this, that if the UK government were to control the media you are able to see then everyone would know about it. It would be world news. Or it would be in countries that have a free media.

There is technically a consultation about this

I call them nonsultations when there's clearly an agenda, but here it is in case anyone finds it useful

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/watch-this-space-a-new-strategic-direction-for-uk-media-green-paper-and-public-consultation/watch-this-space-a-new-strategic-direction-for-uk-media-green-paper-and-public-consultation

Perhaps the government has hushed it up.

Only partly joking there: if the government is indeed controlling the narrative, they’re downplaying this. But I don’t believe this is true - yet. Much as I distrust government, I take care to be sceptical about rumours like this, without real evidence.

@scalt as is often the case, the kernel of truth behind the newspaper article can be found in the government paper that I linked above

Given what they say about YouTube in chapter 1, I think that's what it's been extrapolated

I actually find it hard to believe that a lot of journalists have read that stuff 😂 so I'm guessing there was some kind of briefing at Downing Street and YouTube prioritising content from old style TV channels was mentioned?