Even though YouTube is far ahead of Facebook regarding video, YouTube can feel the social media giant breathing down its neck. YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki slammed Facebook on Tuesday, saying that it should "get back to baby pictures and sharing."
Wojcicki was answering a question about competition in the internet video market.
Baby Pictures
Wojcicki's comments came at Recode's Code Media conference on Tuesday night. At beginning of the conversation with Recode cofounder Kara Swisher, Wojcicki faced tough questions about its content problems.
Swisher says that Wojcicki downplays the competition from Facebook as a video platform.
"I mean you always have to take your competitors seriously, but you don't win by looking backwards and looking around," Wojcicki said regarding the competition. "You win by looking forward and looking at your customers and figuring out what do they want? How can I be better at what we do?"
Wojcicki then plays coy with the idea of what Facebook is doing for its video platform.
"I mean, I think they should focus on what they're focused on. I think they should get back to baby pictures and sharing," Wojcicki said when asked about Facebook's video push. "They should do what's best for their business."
Facebook's reason for jumping into video is a push for more advertising dollars. Together, Facebook and YouTube control 73 percent of U.S. digital advertising. It had a disastrous launch with its Watch tab on the social network. There was no search for content and had no quality material.
Content Problems
Wojcicki says that YouTube is in the process of hiring 10,000 new content moderators to be able to control the quality of the videos that are uploaded. The company is also using machines along with the human moderators. Wojcicki outlines that process of humans training the machines to look for questionable content and then the humans double checking the work of the machines.
Wojcicki also addressed the Russian meddling in the 2016 election. She says that there were fewer than 5,000 videos with a small number of views that were uploaded during that time. Wojcicki says that any state-sponsored news will be labeled. She called election meddling "serious and important" and also taking steps for advertising to be more transparent.
When it came time to criticize Logan Paul, Wojcicki says that Logan Paul can't be banned from YouTube. She says that he didn't broke any of the rules that would cause three strikes on his account. Having three strikes would force YouTube to revoke his account.
