"In addition to her U.S. citizenship,[57] she is a Polish citizen"

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has reiterated the platform's commitment to boosting what she described as "authoritative" sources and "experts" over the independent creators that helped build the video-sharing site into what it is today.

Wojcicki made the comments on TIDETVhamburg, an independent broadcaster that's based in Hamburg, when discussing YouTube's "four R's" policy framework which is used to "Raise," "Remove," "Reduce," and "Reward" videos and creators on the platform.

The YouTube CEO noted that as part of the Raise part of this policy framework, YouTube believes it's important to boost "experts" and "authorities in the subject" ahead of creators who "had an opinion yesterday."

"There's a lot of information topics where we believe it’s important for us to highlight the…experts, the authorities in the subject, similar to Google Search, right," Wojcicki said. "When you go to Google Search and you type in COVID, you’re not gonna see something from somebody who just, you know, had an opinion yesterday, you’re actually gonna see it from a national health organization that specializes in Certificate of Vaccine IDentification."

Wojcicki continued by describing how this approach applies to YouTube recommendations:

"So the same thing we wanna make sure happens with recommendations that when you type in something about information that we’re giving you authoritative information about it, so raising up the experts in…information topics."

Wojcicki also noted that currently, this policy of boosting authoritative information doesn't apply to music.

Wojcicki's support of giving "experts" and "authorities" preferential treatment on the platform reflects a change in tone from the early days of YouTube where independent creators were welcomed and the tagline "Broadcast Yourself" featured prominently on the site.

She and other executives have increasingly echoed this tone in recent years. Wojcicki previously justified YouTube's approach to boosting authoritative sources by saying it's easy to "make up content and post it from your basement." She has also said the platform won't recommend YouTubers for breaking news. Additionally, Neal Mohan, YouTube's Chief Product Officer, has said creators "espousing” opinions "in their basement" can’t provide context on the news.

In 2020, Wojcicki revealed the impact of YouTube's increased focus on authoritative sources by acknowledging that only half the views on the platform come from YouTubers.

Wojcicki made the comments when explaining how YouTube uses its four R's policy framework (Remove, Raise, Reduce, and Reward) to balance "tensions between freedom of speech" and "the need for us to…be responsible as a platform in terms of how we distribute information."

Videos that are deemed to be in violation of YouTube's "hate speech" and "harassment" rules are removed under the "Remove" part of this four R's policy framework.

Wojcicki justified the Remove aspect of this policy by claiming that there's content "I think everyone agrees doesn’t make sense," only to admit seconds later that there's ambiguity around how people define "hate and harassment."

"There’s many content that I think everyone agrees doesn’t make sense," Wojcicki said. "Obviously, like violent extremism, making sure children are safe, hate, harassment, hate and harassment there could be various definitions of where you draw those lines but…there are certainly many categories that we…can all agree don’t belong on a platform for…distribution."

Despite this admission that there are various ways to define hate and harassment, Wojcicki and YouTube support removing content based on these terms.

Wojcicki has previously called for the US government to offer guidance on hate speech and cited Europe’s "much stricter hate laws." She has also acknowledged that YouTube will remove hate speech from elected officials but allow media outlets to reupload it with their own “context.”

YouTube introduced a controversial new harassment policy in December 2019 which targeted insults, mockery, and jokes that go "too far." The policy was blasted by creators who warned that it would prohibit many forms of comedy on the platform.