YouTube has hit a new milestone, with over two billion viewers logged into the service and going square-eyed every month. That's a little over a quarter of the world's population.
As CNET reports, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced the news in a presentation to advertisers on Thursday. The site has been hovering just under two billion active monthly users since February, and has just tipped over the line.
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It's not all rose-tinted filters, though. The share price of Google's parent company Alphabet plunged on Monday following news of slowing revenue growth – partly due to a drop in ad-clicks from YouTube.
Your attention, please
Having a quarter of the world's eyeballs on your platform is impressive, but not much use unless you can monetize them. YouTube's reputation has taken a battering over recent months, which led to companies including AT&T and Disney temporarily pulling ads from the platform.
The site has had its work cut out fighting fires due to channels distributing fake news, and inappropriate comments being left on videos featuring children. It responded by suspending comments on videos featuring minors, adding a fact-checker for sensitive topics, and being more ruthless when deleting clips that violate its terms of service.
"My top priority is responsibility, said Wojcicki in a post on YouTube's Creator Blog earlier this week. "We’re always balancing maintaining an open platform with managing our community guidelines. But to combat a number of concerning incidents we’ve seen in the last few months, we’ve had to take more aggressive action."
