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Authoritative news and information

News and information

There are times when you come to YouTube to catch up on the latest news or to simply learn more about topics you’re curious about. For content where accuracy and authoritativeness are key, including news, politics, medical, and scientific information, we use machine learning systems that prioritize information from authoritative sources and provide context to help you make informed decisions.

Raising authoritative voices

There are a lot of signals - such as relevance and popularity - that typically matter when our systems determine what videos to show when you’re searching for content. However, when it comes to news and information, we know that authoritativeness is key. That’s why we’re committed to helping these users discover authoritative sources when it comes to news and information across our platform.

A watch page for news content on YouTube

To help viewers explore different sides of a news story and form their own opinion of the world, we launched a watch page that brings together a collection of news content from authoritative and diverse sources on YouTube.

Now, in one place, it’s easier to explore content related to a specific news story across multiple formats such as live streams and Shorts. On the watch page, viewers will see sections for:

  • Latest Updates, with the most recent video coverage of the news story
  • Explanations and Commentary, with additional context on the news topic
  • Live News, with live streams showing what’s happening in the moment
  • Shorts, to quickly catch up on the news story’s latest updates

Viewers can open the watch page for a specific news story by clicking on a video with the newspaper icon on the YouTube homepage, news destination page, or in search results.

*Mock Display. For Illustration Purposes Only

Breaking News

When a major breaking news event happens in your country, we want to make sure that you are aware and can easily access authoritative information. In those cases the Breaking News shelf appears directly on your homepage. It features relevant videos from authoritative news sources about news events of national importance.

*Feature availability varies by country and we are working to expand to more countries.

Breaking News shelf on the homepage during major breaking news events

How does YouTube determine what breaking news is?

You may see Breaking News videos on the homepage for events such as large-scale tragedies, natural disasters, and momentous occurrences in national and international politics. In order to highlight breaking news relevant in your country, we rely on Google News to understand what is happening in the world and when a news story is breaking.

Top News

When you proactively search for news-related topics, you will often see a Top News section near the top of search results, which raises relevant results from authoritative voices including news sources like CNN and Fox News. A Top News shelf on your homepage may also show if you watch or search for news content. The Top News shelf will show up regardless of age, and will include relevant content from news sources that follow Google News content policies.

*Feature availability varies by country and we are working to expand to more countries.

Top News shelf: raises relevant results from authoritative voices in search results

Elevating authoritative sources

We raise authoritative voices for newsworthy events in search results and “Up next” panels. In addition to current events, authoritativeness is also important when it comes to topics prone to misinformation, such as vaccines. In these cases, we aim to surface videos from experts, like public health institutions, in search results.

*Feature availability varies by country and we are working to expand to more countries.

Authoritative voices for newsworthy events get prioritized in search results and “Up next” panels

Providing context to help you make informed decisions

Context is critical when evaluating information, so we give you context alongside certain search results and videos to help you make your own decisions about the content that you find on YouTube. To do this, we highlight text-based information about certain events, topics, and publishers from third-party sources using information panels across YouTube.

Developing News

In developing news situations, when high quality video may not be immediately available, we display links to text-based news articles from authoritative sources in YouTube search results. We will also provide a reminder that developing news can rapidly change. We rely on Google News signals to surface this.

*Feature availability varies by country and we are working to expand to more countries.

Developing news information panels link to news articles alongside search results during developing news

Fact checks

Our fact check information panels provide additional context by highlighting relevant, third-party fact-checked articles above search results for relevant queries, so that you can make your own informed decision about claims made in the news.

There are many factors that determine whether a fact check information panel will appear for any given search. Most important, there must be a relevant fact check article available from an eligible publisher. And in order to match your needs with the information we provide, fact checks will show when you search for a specific claim. For example, if you search for "did a tornado hit Los Angeles," you might see a relevant fact check article, but if you search for a more general query like "tornado", you may not.

Our fact check information panels rely on an open network of third-party publishers and leverages the ClaimReview tagging system. All publishers are welcome to participate provided they follow the publicly available ClaimReview structured data guidelines, and are either part of the International Fact-Checking Network or are an authoritative publisher.

*Feature availability varies by country and we are working to expand to more countries.

Fact checks: recently fact checked claims show alongside search results

Topics prone to misinformation

For well-established historical and scientific topics that are often subject to misinformation, such as “Apollo 11,” general reference articles linking to third-party sources appear alongside related search results and videos to provide more context. We do this by surfacing contextual information from third-party sources including Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia alongside videos and search results. We have started with a small group of topics based on third-party sources as we test and roll out this feature.

Topical information panels feature general reference articles alongside search results on topics prone to misinformation

Publisher funding

Since knowledge around funding sources can provide context when assessing an organization's background and help you become a more informed viewer, we disclose government or public funding for news publishers via information panels alongside their videos. We provide information panels on publisher funding on more than a thousand channels.

*Feature availability varies by country and we are working to expand to more countries.

Publisher funding information panels show Government or public funding for news publishers