YouTube

YouTube Shorts Beta, a short-form video experience and TikTok competitor, has launched in the US on Thursday. Shorts features "a multi-segment camera to string multiple video clips together, the ability to record with music, control speed settings, and more" and offers users a feed or short videos directly in the YouTube app instead of a separate app. YouTube announced it will add more features over the following weeks, including "the ability to use audio from videos across YouTube".

Susan Wojcicki, YouTube's CEO, has said Thursday that Donald Trump's account could see its supsension lifted once the risk of violence has receded.

“The channel remains suspended due to the risk of incitement to violence,” Wojcicki said. “We will turn the account back on. But it will be when we see the reduced law enforcement in capitals in the U.S, if we don’t see different warnings coming out of government agencies, those would all be signals to us that it would be safe to turn the channel back on.”

Daft Punk has announced their end - with a YouTube video they released on Monday afternoon, appropriately titled "Epilogue". Featuring footage from their film "Electroma", the electronic duo are saying goodbye to their fans after 28 years. When asked by the music website Pitchfork, the musicians' long-time press agent confirmed the news but did not give any reasons for the split.

YouTuber "Roaring Kitty", whose real name is Keith Gill, is being sued in the US for his involvement in the GameStop stock hype. A class action lawsuit accuses Gill of violating stock laws and causing "huge losses" to investors, according to the statement of claim filed in Massachusetts and dated Tuesday.

The lawsuit accuses Gill of actually being an expert in securities trading who manipulated the market to profit himself. The YouTuber concealed his expertise and misled private investors on social media to buy shares.

Following the fabulous ups and downs of GameStop's share price, the YouTuber is due to testify alongside hedge fund managers and company CEOs before a US House of Representatives committee on Thursday. Gill released a written version of his planned testimony on Wednesday. "The notion that I could have used social media to promote GameStop stock to uninformed investors is absurd," he wrote. "I made it sufficiently clear that my channel was for educational purposes only and that my aggressive investment style was probably not appropriate for most people."

While trying to film a 'prank' robbery video in the hopes to create a viral hit on YouTube, a 20-year-old man was shot and killed in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday night. According to a report by local NBC News affiliate WSMV, Timothy Wilks was shot by 23-year-old David Starnes Jr., who is claiming self-defense.

Police say that Wilks and a friend approached a group of people, both of them wielding butcher knives. Starnes was among those people and, not realizing that Wilks was filming a prank, shot him. Starnes told detectives he was protecting himself and others from a perceived threat.

The YouTuber Mr Beast has announced that he secured space on the NASA Moon rover that is set to be launched in 2021. Onboard will be a hard drive with what he claims is the "universes first digital time capsule".

For $10 people can buy space on the hard drive to send images and videos to the moon "assuming it's legal".

The Bremen District Court has convicted the Lutheran pastor Olaf Latzel of the regional church St Martini parish in the Hanseatic city, of incitement of the people. The fundamentalist pastor had made homophobic and sexist remarks at a marriage seminar in October 2019, and a recording was posted online in March with his consent on his YouTube channel, which has nearly 25,000 subscribers.

According to the court, the statements are incitement and could emotionally justify violence against homosexuals.

Bernd Kuschnerus, the senior theologian of the Bremen Protestant Church, said he was "deeply saddened that a pastor of our church has been convicted of incitement of the people." The statements on which the verdict was based were unacceptable and damaged the reputation of the church, he said. There had been strong opposition to Latzel from the congregations of the Bremen Protestant Church for years. The church leadership has initiated disciplinary proceedings against the pastor, but these are suspended until a legally binding judgment is reached. Latzel's defense filed an appeal.

YouTube bans Steve Bannon's podcast channel hours after Rudy Giuliani appeared on an episode and blamed the Capitol siege on Democrats.

Users from around the world are reporting problems with multiple Google-owned services. Among others YouTube, Gmail and the Google Calendar are unreachable to users.

According to first reports YouTube remains reachable if used in incognito mode or the user hasn't been logged in before.

In future, services such as Facebook and YouTube will have to delete terrorist propaganda in the EU within one hour of being requested to do so by the respective authority of an EU state. Negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states agreed on this on Thursday. For systematic violations, the operators of the sites face fines of four percent of their annual turnover.

YouTube has stated that "Starting today we'll begin slowly rolling out ads on a limited number of videos from channels not in YouTube Partner Program,". Previously the terms of service for users in the United States had been changed and YouTube states that it has "the right to monetize all content on the platform and ads may appear on videos from channels not in the YouTube Partner Program". This means that YouTube will earn money on videos even if the content creators do not fulfill the requirements for the YouTube Partner Program to get a share of the revenue.

For the past decade, YouTube has put together YouTube Rewind – an end-of-ear tribute to creates, trends and the year's defining moments. This year, YouTube has decided to cancelled Rewind.

"Rewind was always meant to be a celebration of you. But 2020 has been different," so the statement posted to Twitter. "And it doesn't feel right to carry on as if it weren't. So, we're taking a break from Rewind this year."

According to a report by Bloomberg, Youtube can only actually accommodate a part of the ordered commercials for the US elections. Due to the demand the advertising prices have doubled in some cases.

Children and young people are to be better protected against harassment and cyberbullying on the Internet in the future. The Federal Cabinet has updated the Youth Protection Act of 2002 and adapted it to the new platforms such as YouTube, messenger services and TikTok. Accordingly, providers must meet requirements such as secure presettings, child-friendly help and complaint systems and uniform age rating.

Apple has officially announced its virtual special event "Time Flies" for September 15 at 10 am PT. Members of the press have been invited to join remotely and a live stream placeholder is available on YouTube.

In 2019 a YouTube video had surfaced in which a violent attack by security forces on asylum seekers could be seen. It had been filmed at the Central Contact Point for refugees in Saxony-Anhalt and the public prosecutor has now charged the security forces with bodily harm.

The video showed that security forces first separated two quarreling refugees, but then kicked them lying on the floor.

The proceedings will be conducted before the Halberstadt District Court.

Google has updated its "Other restricted businesses policy" and will start "to restrict the serving of High Fat Sugar Salt (HFSS) Food and/or Non-Alcoholic Beverages (F&B) advertising for minors in the United Kingdom and European Union".

The policy will be applied to the Google Display Network and YouTube and there apply to all people under the age of 18. Google stated that the new policy will be enforced from the 6th of October.

Some examples for the products that fall under these advertisement restrictions are sweetened beverages, cakes, pizza, salt, butter, pork and a number of other products.

An FBI swat team has searched the Calabasas residence of 23-year-old YouTuber Jake Paul and confiscated several firearms, including long guns. The reason for the search has not been disclosed but was reportedly related to an ongoing investigation. At the time of the raid, Paul was not present.

"The FBI is executing a federal search warrant at a residence in Calabasas in connection with an ongoing investigation," so a statement by the FBI. "The affidavit in support of the search warrant has been sealed by a judge and I am, therefore, prohibited from commenting as to the nature of the investigation. No arrests are planned."

David Duke, white supremacist and former KKK grand wizard, has gotten his Twitter account permanently suspended on Thursday. Duke's account was banned "for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct" and for sharing "harmful links," so a Twitter spokesperson.

Twitter's move comes just a month after YouTube banned Duke's channel in late June for violating its "strict policies prohibiting hate speech."

Spotify announced on Tuesday the global launch of video podcasts, a feature that allows users to watch the video content from a select group of creator podcasts.

In a direct response to YouTube, where only paid subscribers can listen to video content in the background, Spotify says all of its users will be able to seamlessly move between the video version and the audio.