The Scene
This is an excerpt from an interview with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on the Mixed Signals podcast from Semafor Media. Listen to the latest episode here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Ben Smith: You’ve said that the number one priority for YouTube is the safety of YouTube’s ecosystem. We’re in a moment when that’s actually a slightly unusual thing to say, and a lot of platforms are really backing off anything, like content moderation, probably because of pressure from this White House and this administration. I wonder if you feel like there’s tension between you and the administration on, I guess, particularly issues around public health?
Neal Mohan: I’ll say a few things. First, and probably most important and really at the top is everything that we talk about, everything we just talked about in terms of the business, how content works on our platform, et cetera, is back to our mission statement, which is to give everyone a voice and show them the world. The first half of that mission statement is really about free expression and freedom of speech. I can say for myself, and I know for many of the colleagues that I work with every single day, that’s why we come to work.
That’s the power of YouTube, that if you have an idea, you have a thought and you want to share it with the world, then YouTube is a place where you can go and share it without somebody telling you that you don’t sound the right way or you don’t look the right way or you’re saying the wrong thing or what have you.
That is core to our mission and everything that we do is ultimately, frankly, in service of that. It’s the reason why actually, I think we’ve had community guidelines from the very early days, and in order to allow creators to be able to share their ideas, have this free voice, freedom of expression, and to earn a sustainable living from it, we also have rules of the road in terms of how our platform works, like no porn or adult content or financial scams or what have you. Back to the question around when you turn on the TV, that’s not what consumers are looking for when they turn it on, and our advertisers, the brands that support that content aren’t looking for. Our approach to responsibility is with all of that in mind, but ultimately, towards this goal of freedom of expression. That’s how I’ve always looked at it, and even in years past when you and I have talked about it, hopefully I’ve been consistent in terms of that core thesis.
The other aspect of that is implicit in your question around you talked about health information. A lot of that is about the broader context. YouTube, the reason why we’re the epicenter of culture is because we reflect what’s happening in the world. What was happening in the world in March of 2020 is very different than what’s happening in the world in March of 2025. That’s a long period of time. It was a very, very different world back then where nobody knew what was going on. Frankly, people were dying in hospitals every single day in New York City. People were climbing 5G cell towers because they thought they were getting some disease from cell towers.
It was a pretty crazy time. Having health related policies that apply to that time is very different than five years from now where we’ve deprecated frankly almost all of our COVID-19 policies. What I’m trying to point out is that it’s, at least from my standpoint, staying true to the principles of free speech, but also, facilitating these community guidelines, but also then being flexible and cognizant of the broader context is really important. That’s always been our approach at YouTube and that’s how we think about these questions around content.
There were some RFK Jr. videos I think that you took down back in the before times, and as you say in these very chaotic moments, do you think you’re going to restore those?
I can’t speak to the specific videos, but on a policy standpoint, as I said, vast majority of those, of anything that was related, and I don’t know the context of these videos, but anything related to our COVID-19 policies are things that we have deprecated. Frankly, every time I share that, it sounds pretty natural to people when I say that because again, I think most people would recognize that where the world was five years ago is very different than where it is today, and I think that’s pretty important.
Do you think it was a mistake? I don’t mean by YouTube because I think I remember I talked to Mark Zuckerberg early in the pandemic and had a conversation about, wow, maybe amid all the debates over speech, at least the public health stuff is so obvious, it’s so easy. We can rely on the doctors. In retrospect, not only was that, I think there were legitimate debates over public health and maybe that aperture should have been wider, but also it sure seems like attempts to shield people from “misinformation” and from absolute lunacy, just as a matter of fact, backfired, and vaccine acceptance in the US right now is lower than it’s been in a long time. Do you think in a big picture sense, did we get that whole misinformation thing wrong?
Again, I think that the way I’ve thought about it is the context really mattered. Again, back to that time period, science and knowledge around what was happening to all of us, our families, our friends, was being created by the week. It was a pretty remarkable time if you think about if you just rewind back to March of 2020, at the precipice of this world-changing event, and I’m sure books will be written for decades to come in terms of its impact on all of us as human beings, society, all those types of pieces.
I think the one thing, again, just back to YouTube that I would say that is a bit, the nature of YouTube I think is different than perhaps some of these other platforms in the sense that it’s a place where people come to listen to Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter or watch an NFL game or watch our favorite gaming stream or what have you. Just the use cases and how people engage with YouTube was different than some of the other platforms. I think the nature of the challenges presented to us was just a bit different than it might’ve been on some of the other platforms as well. I think the context of how users use and what exists on these platforms and how they work is also important when you have this broader conversation around content.