How Should YouTube Be Regulated?

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YouTube has become America’s digital town square. With 85% of U.S. adults using the platform, it reaches more people than Facebook or Instagram. Nearly 238 million Americans watch videos on the platform, making the U.S. its second-largest market globally.

The platform shapes how Americans get their news, with 32% of adults regularly getting information from YouTube. This figure has risen sharply in recent years, now matching Facebook as a primary news source. YouTube has also created a massive economic engine, contributing $55 billion to U.S. GDP in 2024 and supporting 490,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

But YouTube’s influence brings serious problems. The platform spreads dangerous misinformation, fails to protect children adequately, and its recommendation algorithm may push users toward extreme content. For two decades, YouTube has operated with minimal federal oversight under laws designed for the early internet.

Should the government regulate one of America’s most powerful digital platforms? And if so, how?

Legal Framework: Free Speech Meets Platform Power

Two legal principles have shaped YouTube’s growth: the First Amendment’s free speech protections and Section 230’s liability shield. Together, they created the environment that allowed platforms like YouTube to become global giants. They also represent the biggest obstacles to government regulation.

First Amendment Rights for Platforms

The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” In the digital age, courts have increasingly recognized that platforms themselves have First Amendment rights related to their “editorial discretion” – the power to decide what content they publish, promote, or remove.

This principle faced a major test in 2024’s Supreme Court case, Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton. Florida and Texas had passed laws preventing large social media platforms from removing content based on political viewpoints, particularly conservative viewpoints. The platforms argued these laws unconstitutionally forced them to host speech they would otherwise remove.

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that lower courts had not properly analyzed the issue. Justice Elena Kagan’s majority opinion provided strong guidance affirming platforms’ First Amendment protections. The Court compared content moderation – selecting, ordering, and arranging user-generated content – to editorial choices made by newspaper editors, which have long been constitutionally protected.

Kagan wrote that when a platform creates a “distinctive expressive offering” through its curation choices, the First Amendment is implicated. The ruling made clear that a state’s desire to create what it sees as a more “balanced” ideological forum is not sufficient reason to override a private company’s expressive choices.

Civil liberties organizations like the ACLU strongly support this position. The ACLU argues that while platforms should preserve as much political speech as possible as corporate policy, the government cannot constitutionally mandate those choices. Doing so would replace private editorial voice with government preferences, creating a dangerous precedent for free speech.

This legal shield means any government regulation attempting to dictate what content YouTube must or must not carry faces a formidable constitutional challenge.

Section 230: The Internet’s Foundation

While the First Amendment protects platforms from being forced to host content, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 largely protects them from being sued over content they do host. Often called “the 26 words that created the internet,” it was designed to solve the “moderator’s dilemma.”

A 1995 court case, Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., found that an online service that tried to moderate some content could be held liable as a publisher for all content on its site. Services that did nothing were treated as mere distributors with no liability. This created a perverse incentive for platforms to either censor heavily or not moderate at all.

Congress enacted Section 230 to reverse this outcome and encourage platforms to self-regulate harmful material without fearing litigation. The law has two critical parts:

Section 230(c)(1) is the core liability shield. It states, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” In practice, this means YouTube cannot be sued for defamation, harassment, or other harms contained in a video uploaded by a user.

Section 230(c)(2) is the “Good Samaritan” provision. It protects platforms from liability for actions “voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” This clause allows YouTube to remove content that violates its policies without being sued for censorship by the user who posted it.

For decades, courts have interpreted these provisions broadly, creating expansive immunity that has allowed social media to flourish. However, there is now strong bipartisan consensus in Washington that this immunity has gone too far, shielding platforms from accountability for real-world harms their services can facilitate.

The U.S. Department of Justice has proposed reforms aimed at narrowing Section 230’s protections:

• Bad Samaritan Carve-Out: Remove immunity for platforms that purposefully facilitate or solicit illegal content
• Exempting Egregious Harms: Eliminate Section 230 protection for civil claims related to child sexual abuse material, terrorism, and cyber-stalking
• Clarifying Government Enforcement: Ensure Section 230 does not block civil enforcement actions brought by the federal government or lawsuits related to antitrust violations

These legal frameworks create a complex environment for regulation. The Supreme Court has fortified platforms’ First Amendment right to moderate as protected speech, while Congress and the executive branch explore using liability threats to compel more aggressive moderation. Any future regulation of YouTube must navigate this constitutional tightrope, balancing public safety goals with private companies’ protected editorial rights.

Problems Driving Regulation Calls

Three specific issues have galvanized public and political pressure for government intervention: dangerous misinformation, inadequate child protection, and controversial recommendation algorithms. Each presents distinct regulatory challenges, complicating the search for comprehensive solutions.

Health and Election Misinformation

YouTube’s massive reach makes it a powerful amplifier of both true and false information. During crises, this amplification can have devastating consequences. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a stark case study, as the platform became a primary vector for a parallel “infodemic” of health misinformation.

One study found that over a quarter of the most-viewed COVID-19 videos on YouTube contained misleading or inaccurate information. This content ranged from promoting unproven and dangerous “cures” to fueling vaccine hesitancy, which public health officials linked to lower vaccination rates and preventable deaths. One analysis attributed at least 800 deaths and nearly 6,000 hospitalizations globally to individuals consuming methanol under the false belief it could cure the virus.

YouTube has developed a comprehensive medical misinformation policy that prohibits content contradicting guidance from health authorities like the World Health Organization on prevention, treatment, or existence of specific conditions, including COVID-19 and cancer. For example, a video claiming “garlic cures cancer” would be removed.

However, the platform faces a difficult balancing act, often allowing content that might otherwise violate its policies if deemed to be in the public interest, such as statements made by political candidates during campaigns.

A similar dynamic plays out during election cycles. False narratives about election integrity, from claims of stolen elections to disinformation about how, when, and where to vote, have eroded public trust and incited threats against election workers.

Investigations by the nonprofit Global Witness have revealed inconsistencies in YouTube’s enforcement. While the platform successfully blocked 100% of test ads containing election disinformation ahead of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, it approved all similar ads in Brazil and India, suggesting enforcement resources and priorities are not applied equally across the globe.

Child Safety and Privacy Violations

With 90% of American teens using the platform, many daily, YouTube’s impact on children is an area of intense regulatory focus. The most significant government action came in 2019, when the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General fined Google and YouTube a record-breaking $170 million.

The settlement resolved allegations that YouTube had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a 1998 law requiring online services to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13. The FTC found that YouTube had knowingly collected data, such as persistent identifiers used for tracking viewing history, from children on channels directed at them and used that data to serve lucrative targeted advertisements without parental permission.

The settlement forced YouTube to implement a system requiring creators to designate their content as “Made for Kids.” This designation automatically disables features like personalized ads and comments, which significantly reduces revenue potential for creators in the children’s content space and places liability for incorrect designation on the creators themselves.

Despite these changes, concerns persist. Allegations resurfaced in 2023 that YouTube was still serving personalized ads on “Made for Kids” videos, prompting a bipartisan group of senators to call for a new FTC investigation.

Beyond data privacy, critics point to phenomena like “Elsagate,” where disturbing or violent content disguised with child-friendly characters and thumbnails evades automated moderation systems and is served to young children. These issues have fueled legislative efforts like the Kids Online Safety Act, which seeks to impose a broader “duty of care” on platforms to protect minors from harms related to mental health and “addictive” design features.

Algorithmic Recommendations and Radicalization

Perhaps the most complex and contentious debate surrounds YouTube’s powerful recommendation algorithm, which is responsible for over 70% of content watched on the platform. One prominent theory, known as “algorithmic radicalization,” suggests the algorithm is designed to maximize engagement by systematically pushing users toward more extreme, partisan, and conspiratorial content over time.

According to this view, a user who starts watching mainstream political commentary could be led down a “rabbit hole” to extremist channels, contributing to political polarization and, in some cases, real-world violence. A 2023 study from UC Davis researchers, which used automated accounts to simulate user behavior, found that while the algorithm mostly recommends ideologically similar content, right-leaning users were more likely to be recommended videos from channels promoting extremism and conspiracy theories.

However, significant academic research challenges this narrative. Several studies have found little to no evidence that the algorithm is a primary driver of radicalization. A 2020 study published in First Monday analyzed traffic flows between nearly 800 political channels and concluded that, contrary to popular claims, YouTube’s algorithm actively discourages viewers from visiting extremist content, instead favoring mainstream and left-leaning news sources.

Similarly, research from the University of Pennsylvania’s Computational Social Science Lab found that users’ own preferences play the primary role in what they watch, and that the recommendation algorithm has a moderating effect, pulling users toward less partisan content than they would choose on their own.

This deep academic disagreement makes regulating the algorithm exceptionally difficult. Without clear consensus on whether the algorithm causes harm or has a moderating effect, creating effective and evidence-based policy is a formidable challenge.

The nature of these three flashpoints reveals why the regulatory debate is so fragmented. Misinformation is fundamentally a content problem, raising direct First Amendment questions about speech. Child safety is often framed as a design and data privacy problem, potentially allowing regulations focused on product safety rather than speech. Algorithmic radicalization is a complex systemic problem where evidence of harm is contested and regulation could be seen as the ultimate form of editorial interference.

International and Domestic Approaches

As U.S. policymakers grapple with YouTube regulation, they are considering options ranging from targeted single-issue legislation to creating entirely new regulatory bodies. They are also looking abroad, particularly to the European Union, which has implemented a comprehensive new rulebook for the digital world.

European Union’s Digital Services Act

The European Union took a decisive step toward comprehensive platform regulation with its Digital Services Act (DSA), which became fully applicable in February 2024. The DSA represents a significant philosophical departure from the U.S. approach.

While the U.S. system, built on Section 230, is primarily a liability shield that encourages voluntary moderation, the DSA establishes a framework of mandatory “due diligence” and proactive risk management. It maintains liability protections similar to Section 230 but conditions them on new obligations.

The DSA’s rules are tiered, with the most stringent requirements reserved for “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) like YouTube, defined as services with more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU. Key provisions include:

Systemic Risk Assessments: VLOPs must conduct annual assessments of systemic risks their services pose, including dissemination of illegal content, negative effects on fundamental rights like free expression and privacy, and spread of disinformation, particularly concerning elections and public health. They are then required to implement reasonable and effective measures to mitigate these identified risks.

Enhanced Transparency and Scrutiny: The DSA mandates new transparency levels. Platforms must provide users with clear explanations for content moderation decisions, submit to independent annual audits of their compliance, and grant vetted academic researchers access to platform data to study systemic risks.

New User Rights: Users are granted new powers, including the right to challenge content moderation decisions through an out-of-court dispute settlement body and the right to opt out of recommendation systems based on profiling.

Restrictions on Advertising: The act bans targeted advertising aimed at children and prohibits using sensitive personal data (such as religion, political opinions, or sexual orientation) for ad targeting.

The DSA is enforced through a cooperative structure of national regulators and the European Commission, which has the power to levy fines of up to 6% of a company’s global annual turnover for violations.

U.S. Targeted Legislation

In the United States, the legislative response has been more fragmented, focusing on specific, well-defined harms rather than complete systemic overhaul. This reflects both the political difficulty of passing comprehensive tech regulation and legal constraints imposed by the First Amendment.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act

In May 2025, the Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks (TAKE IT DOWN) Act was signed into law. This bipartisan law addresses the proliferation of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including AI-generated “deepfakes.” Its core provisions are:

Criminalization: It makes it a federal crime to knowingly publish authentic or digitally forged intimate images of an individual without their consent.

Notice-and-Takedown Regime: It requires “covered platforms” like YouTube to establish a process for victims to report NCII. Upon receiving a valid request, the platform must remove the content within 48 hours and make “reasonable efforts” to remove identical copies.

While the law was widely supported by victim advocacy groups and law enforcement, civil liberties organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have raised significant concerns. Critics argue that the tight 48-hour takedown window, combined with a lack of strong safeguards against bad-faith reports, will incentivize platforms to over-remove content to avoid legal risk, potentially leading to censorship of legitimate speech, satire, or journalism.

Kids Online Safety Act

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is another major bipartisan proposal that has garnered significant support but has yet to become law. The bill aims to protect users under 17 by imposing a “duty of care” on covered platforms. Key provisions include:

Duty of Care: Platforms would be required to “exercise reasonable care” to prevent and mitigate specific harms to minors, including mental health disorders (anxiety, depression, eating disorders), addiction-like behaviors, sexual exploitation, and online bullying.

Safeguards and Parental Controls: The bill mandates that platforms provide minors with easy-to-use safeguards, such as limiting communications from strangers and disabling “addictive” design features like infinite scroll and autoplay. It also requires platforms to provide parents with tools to monitor and control their child’s account settings.

KOSA passed the Senate with overwhelming support in the 118th Congress but stalled in the House over concerns from some Republicans and tech industry groups that the “duty of care” provision was too vague and could be used to censor speech protected by the First Amendment. The bill was reintroduced in the 119th Congress with revised language intended to clarify that it cannot be enforced based on the viewpoint of user-generated content.

A New Federal Watchdog

A more comprehensive, though less politically advanced, proposal is the Digital Platform Commission Act of 2023. Introduced by Senators Michael Bennet and Peter Welch, this bill would represent a fundamental shift in U.S. tech regulation by creating a new, expert federal agency with broad oversight powers, similar in concept to the Federal Communications Commission or Food and Drug Administration.

The proposed Federal Digital Platform Commission would be empowered to:

Designate “Systemically Important Digital Platforms”: The commission could apply stricter rules to the largest and most influential platforms based on their economic, social, and political impact.

Conduct Rulemaking: The commission would have authority to develop and enforce rules on algorithmic transparency and fairness, data portability, content moderation policies, and age-appropriate design codes.

Provide Expert Support: The agency would act as a hub of expertise, supporting other government bodies like the FTC and DOJ in their consumer protection and antitrust enforcement efforts.

This proposal reflects a belief that problems posed by digital platforms are too complex, dynamic, and interconnected to be solved by targeted, harm-specific laws. Instead, it argues for a permanent, expert body capable of adapting to new technologies and risks. The bill was introduced in May 2023 and referred to committee, where it currently remains, highlighting the significant political challenge of creating a new federal regulatory agency.

Economic Impact on Creators

The debate over YouTube regulation isn’t just about abstract principles of speech and safety. It’s about the concrete economic reality for nearly half a million Americans whose livelihoods are tied to the platform. The creator economy is a significant and growing sector of the U.S. economy, but it rests on a fragile foundation: the opaque and often unpredictable content moderation and monetization systems of a single company.

The Creator Economy’s Scale

The economic scale of YouTube’s creator ecosystem is staggering. According to a 2024 report by Oxford Economics, creative entrepreneurs on the platform contributed over $55 billion to U.S. GDP and supported the equivalent of 490,000 full-time jobs. This economic impact has grown rapidly, up from $35 billion and 390,000 jobs in 2022.

The ecosystem extends far beyond creators themselves, supporting a network of editors, managers, graphic designers, and marketers who depend on the platform for work. This economic activity is fueled by the YouTube Partner Program, which shares revenue from advertising and subscriptions with eligible creators. Between 2021 and 2023, YouTube paid out over $70 billion to creators, artists, and media companies worldwide.

However, this revenue is not guaranteed. It is contingent on creators adhering to a complex and evolving set of content policies, and enforcement of these policies is a source of constant uncertainty and financial precarity.

Content Moderation at Scale

The core operational challenge for YouTube is the sheer impossibility of perfectly moderating the platform’s content. More than 500 hours of video are uploaded every minute, a volume no human workforce could ever hope to review. This forces the platform to rely heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to flag potentially violating content for human review.

This hybrid system is fraught with limitations:

AI’s Lack of Context: Automated systems excel at identifying clear violations like graphic nudity or copyrighted music, but they struggle profoundly with nuance, context, sarcasm, and cultural differences. An AI might flag a historical documentary for depicting violence or an educational health video for nudity, failing to distinguish them from gratuitous or harmful content.

Human Limitations: While human moderators can understand context, they cannot operate at the necessary scale. They are also subject to bias, inconsistency, and immense psychological stress from repeated exposure to disturbing material. Furthermore, moderating a global platform requires deep linguistic and cultural expertise that is difficult to scale across all markets.

Because of these inherent challenges, content moderation at scale will always involve errors – both “false positives” (removing acceptable content) and “false negatives” (failing to remove violating content). For the public and policymakers, the focus is often on false negatives. For creators, false positives can be financially devastating.

The Demonetization Problem

Demonetization is YouTube’s primary enforcement tool for its “advertiser-friendly” content guidelines, which are separate from and often stricter than its core Community Guidelines. When a video is demonetized, it is no longer eligible to earn revenue from most types of ads. While this is intended to protect advertisers from having their brands appear alongside controversial content, the process is often perceived by creators as arbitrary, opaque, and unfair.

Numerous creators have shared stories of having their videos or entire channels demonetized without clear explanation. Jill Bearup, a creator with over 500,000 subscribers, reported her entire channel was demonetized for ten days for a reason that was never adequately explained. Other creators describe a frustrating and often fruitless appeals process, where decisions made by automated systems are upheld without meaningful human review.

This can happen even to channels with educational missions. A history channel showing archival footage of a war or a farming channel showing the realities of animal husbandry could be flagged for “violence” or “shocking content” by an algorithm that lacks context.

The economic consequences of these errors can be severe. One creator reported losing tens of thousands of dollars and being forced to fire an editor after their channel was demonetized for a full year without a clear path to resolution. This financial instability is a defining feature of the creator economy. While the platform provides immense opportunity, it also holds immense power, and a single, often automated, decision can threaten a creator’s entire business.

Regulatory Trade-offs

This reality introduces a critical trade-off into the regulatory debate. Government mandates that require platforms to be more aggressive in removing broadly defined categories of “harmful” content could force YouTube to make its automated systems even more conservative to avoid hefty fines. This would likely increase the rate of false positives, leading to more wrongful demonetization and takedowns, thereby harming the creator economy that contributes so significantly to U.S. GDP.

Conversely, regulations that restrict a platform’s ability to moderate could drive away advertisers, shrinking the pool of revenue available to all creators. Any proposed government regulation must be carefully weighed against its potential impact on the livelihoods of nearly half a million Americans who have built their careers on the platform.

Government intervention, however well-intentioned, risks disrupting this delicate ecosystem. The challenge for policymakers is finding approaches that address legitimate public concerns about misinformation, child safety, and algorithmic influence while preserving the economic engine that YouTube has become for American creators and the broader economy.

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