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The Fight for the Future of YouTube

By Neima Jahromi

Earlier this year, executives at YouTube began mulling, once again, the problem of online speech. On grounds of freedom of expression and ideological neutrality, the platform has long allowed users to upload videos endorsing noxious ideas, from conspiracy theories to neo-Nazism. Now it wanted to reverse course. “There are no sacred cows,” Susan Wojcicki, the C.E.O. of YouTube, reportedly told her team. Wojcicki had two competing goals: she wanted to avoid accusations of ideological bias while also affirming her company’s values. In the course of the spring, YouTube drafted a new policy that would ban videos trafficking in historical “denialism” (of the Holocaust, 9/11, Sandy Hook) and “supremacist” views (lauding the “white race,” arguing that men were intellectually superior to women). YouTube planned to roll out its new policy as early as June. In May, meanwhile, it started preparing for Pride Month, turning its red logo rainbow-colored and promoting popular L.G.B.T.Q. video producers on Instagram.

On May 30th, Carlos Maza, a media critic at Vox, upended these efforts. In a Twitter thread that quickly went viral, Maza argued that the company’s publicity campaign belied its lax enforcement of the content and harassment policies it had already put in place. Maza posted a video supercut of bigoted insults that he’d received from Steven Crowder, a conservative comedian with nearly four million YouTube followers; the insults focussed on Maza’s ethnicity and sexual orientation. When Crowder mentioned Maza in a video, his fans piled on; last year, Maza’s cell phone was bombarded with hundreds of texts from different numbers which read “debate steven crowder.” Maza said that he’d reported the behavior to YouTube’s content moderators numerous times, and that they had done nothing.

On Twitter and his YouTube channel, Crowder insisted that, in labelling Maza a “lispy queer” and a “token Vox gay-athiest sprite,” he had been trying to be funny. Maza’s supporters, meanwhile, shared screenshots of ads that had run before Crowder’s videos, suggesting that, because YouTube offers popular video producers a cut of ad revenue, the company had implicitly condoned Crowder’s messages. YouTube said it would investigate. A week later, it tweeted that Crowder hadn’t violated its community guidelines in any of the videos that Maza highlighted. The next day, it announced its new policy, which included a warning that the company would no longer share ad revenue with YouTubers who repeatedly brushed up against its rules. Then it announced that Crowder would be cut off from the platform’s ad dollars.

The news made no one happy. Maza said that he wanted Crowder’s channel removed completely; conservatives, including the Republican senator Ted Cruz, complained about censorship. YouTube employees, siding with Maza, began denouncing their bosses on Twitter and in the press. “It’s a classic move from a comms playbook,” Micah Schaffer, a technology adviser who wrote YouTube’s first community guidelines, told me. “Like, ‘Hey, can we move up that launch to change the news cycle?’ Instead, it made it worse. It combined into a Voltron of bad news.” (A YouTube spokesperson said that the launch date was not in response to any individual event.) Former colleagues deluged Schaffer, who had left the company in 2009, with bewildered e-mails and texts. (A typical subject line: “WTF is Going on at YouTube?”) Sitting in a dentist’s office, he started typing a response on his phone, trying to lay out what he thought had gone wrong at the company.

Schaffer told me that hate speech had been a problem on YouTube since its earliest days. Dealing with it used to be fairly straightforward. YouTube was founded, in 2005, by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who met while working at PayPal. At first, the site was moderated largely by its co-founders; in 2006, they hired a single, part-time moderator. The company removed videos often, rarely encountering pushback. In the intervening thirteen years, a lot has changed. “YouTube has the scale of the entire Internet,” Sundar Pichai, the C.E.O. of Google, which owns YouTube, told Axios last month. The site now attracts a monthly audience of two billion people and employs thousands of moderators. Every minute, its users upload five hundred hours of new video. The technical, social, and political challenges of moderating such a system are profound. They raise fundamental questions not just about YouTube’s business but about what social-media platforms have become and what they should be.

Perhaps because of the vast scale at which most social platforms operate, proposed solutions to the problem of online hate speech tend to be technical in nature. In theory, a platform might fine-tune its algorithms to deëmphasize hate speech and conspiracy theories. But, in practice, this is harder than it sounds. Some overtly hateful users may employ language and symbols that clearly violate a site’s community guidelines—but so called borderline content, which dances at the edge of provocation, is harder to detect and draws a broad audience. Machine-learning systems struggle to tell the difference between actual hate speech and content that describes or contests it. (After YouTube announced its new policies, the Southern Poverty Law Center complained that one of its videos, which was meant to document hate speech, had been taken down.) Some automated systems use metadata—information about how often a user posts, or about the number of comments that a post gets in a short period of time—to flag toxic content without trying to interpret it. But this sort of analysis is limited by the way that content bounces between platforms, obscuring the full range of interactions it has provoked.

Tech companies have hired thousands of human moderators to make nuanced decisions about speech. YouTube also relies on anonymous outside “raters” to evaluate videos and help train its recommendations systems. But the flood of questionable posts is overwhelming, and sifting through it can take a psychological toll. Earlier this year, YouTube described its efforts to draw more heavily on user feedback—survey responses, likes and dislikes—to help identify “quality” videos. And yet, in a 2016 white paper , the company’s own engineers wrote that such metrics aren’t very useful; the problem is that, for many videos, “explicit feedback is extremely sparse” compared to “implicit” signals, such as what users click on or how long they watch a video. Teen-agers, in particular, who use YouTube more than any other kind of social media, often respond to surveys in mischievous ways.

Business challenges compound the technical ones. In a broad sense, any algorithmic change that dampens user engagement could work against YouTube’s business model. Netflix, which is YouTube’s chief rival in online video, can keep subscribers streaming by licensing or crafting addictive content; YouTube, by contrast, relies on user-generated clips, strung together by an automated recommendation engine. Programmers are always tweaking the system and the company is reluctant to disclose details. Still, a 2018 white paper outlined the general principle at that time: once someone starts watching a video, the engine is designed to “dig into a topic more deeply,” luring the viewer down the proverbial rabbit hole. Many outside researchers argue that this system, which helped drive YouTube’s engagement growth, also amplified hate speech and conspiracy theories on the platform. As the engine dug deeper, it risked making unsavory suggestions: unearth enough videos about the moon landing and some of them may argue that it was faked.

Francesca Tripodi, a media scholar at James Madison University, has studied how right-wing conspiracy theorists perpetuate false ideas online. Essentially, they find unfilled rabbit holes and then create content to fill them. “When there is limited or no metadata matching a particular topic,” she told a Senate committee in April, “it is easy to coördinate around keywords to guarantee the kind of information Google will return.” Political provocateurs can take advantage of data vacuums to increase the likelihood that legitimate news clips will be followed by their videos. And, because controversial or outlandish videos tend to be riveting, even for those who dislike them, they can register as “engaging” to a recommendation system, which would surface them more often. The many automated systems within a social platform can be co-opted and made to work at cross purposes.

Technological solutions are appealing, in part, because they are relatively unobtrusive. Programmers like the idea of solving thorny problems elegantly, behind the scenes. For users, meanwhile, the value of social-media platforms lies partly in their appearance of democratic openness. It’s nice to imagine that the content is made by the people, for the people, and that popularity flows from the grass roots.

In fact, the apparent democratic neutrality of social-media platforms has always been shaped by algorithms and managers. In its early days, YouTube staffers often cultivated popularity by hand, choosing trending videos to highlight on its home page; if the site gave a leg up to a promising YouTuber, that YouTuber’s audience grew. By spotlighting its most appealing users, the platform attracted new ones. It also shaped its identity: by featuring some kinds of content more than others, the company showed YouTubers what kind of videos it was willing to boost. “They had to be super family friendly, not copyright-infringing, and, at the same time, compelling,” Schaffer recalled, of the highlighted videos.

Today, YouTube employs scores of “partner managers,” who actively court and promote celebrities, musicians, and gamers—meeting with individual video producers to answer questions about how they can reach bigger audiences, giving them early access to new platform features, and inviting them to workshops where they can network with other successful YouTubers. Since 2016, meanwhile, it has begun paying socially conscious YouTubers to create videos about politically charged subjects, through a program called Creators for Change. “In this instance, it’s a social-impact group,” Paul Marvucic, a YouTube marketing manager, explained. “We’re saying, ‘We really believe in what you guys are saying, and it’s very core to our values.’ ”

The question of YouTube’s values—what they are, whether it should have them, how it should uphold them—is fraught. In December of last year, Sundar Pichai, the C.E.O. of Google, went before Congress and faced questions about social media’s influence on politics. Democrats complained that YouTube videos promoted white supremacy and right-wing extremism; Republicans, in turn, worried that the site might be “biased” against them, and that innocent videos might be labelled as hate speech merely for containing conservative views. “It’s really important to me that we approach our work in an unbiased way,” Pichai said.

And yet the Creators for Change program requires YouTube to embrace certain kinds of ideological commitments. This past fall, for an audience of high-school and college students, YouTube staged a Creators for Change event in the Economic and Social Council chamber at the United Nations. The occasion marked the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and five “ambassadors” from the program joined Craig Mokhiber, the director of the New York office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, onstage. “The U.N. is not just a conference center that convenes to hear any perspective offered by any person on any issue,” Mokhiber said. Instead, he argued, it represents one side in a conflict of ideas. In one corner are universal rights to housing, health care, education, food, and safety; in the other are the ideologies espoused by Islamophobes, homophobes, anti-Semites, sexists, ethno-nationalists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis. In his view, YouTube needed to pick a side. He urged the YouTubers onstage to take the ideals represented by the U.N. and “amplify” them in their videos. “We’re in the middle of a struggle that will determine, in our lifetime, whether human dignity will be advanced or crushed, for us and for future generations,” he said.

Last year, YouTube paid forty-seven ambassadors to produce socially conscious videos and attend workshops. The program’s budget, of around five million dollars—it also helps fund school programs designed to improve students’ critical-thinking skills when they are confronted with emotionally charged videos—is a tiny sum compared to the hundreds of millions that the company reportedly spends on YouTube Originals, its entertainment-production arm. Still, one YouTube representative told me, “We saw hundreds of millions of views on ambassadors’ videos last year—hundreds of thousands of hours of watch time.” Most people encountered the Creators for Change clips as automated advertisements before other videos.

The Mumbai-based comedian Prajakta Koli, known on YouTube as MostlySane, sat beside Mokhiber in the U.N. chamber. Around four million people follow her channel. Her videos usually riff on the irritating people whom she encounters in her college cafeteria or on the pitfalls of dating foreigners. “ No Offence ,” a music video that she screened at the Creators for Change event, is different. As it begins, Koli slouches in her pajamas on the couch, watching a homophobe, a misogynist, and an Internet troll—all played by her—rant on fictional news shows. A minute later, she dons boxing gloves and takes on each of them in a rap battle. After the screening, Koli said that she had already begun taking on weighty subjects, such as divorce and body shaming, on her own. But it helped that YouTube had footed the production and marketing costs for “No Offence,” which were substantial. The video is now her most watched, with twelve million views.

On a channel called AsapScience, Gregory Brown, a former high-school teacher, and his boyfriend, Mitchell Moffit, make animated clips about science that affects their viewers’ everyday lives; their most successful videos address topics such as the science of coffee or masturbation. They used their Creators for Change dollars to produce a video about the scientifically measurable effects of racism , featuring the Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson . While the average AsapScience video takes a week to make, the video about racism had taken seven or eight months: the level of bad faith and misinformation surrounding the topic, Brown said, demanded extra precision. “You need to explain the study, explain the parameters, and explain the result so that people can’t argue against it,” he said. “And that doesn’t make the video as interesting, and that’s a challenge.” (Toxic content proliferates, in part, because it is comparatively easy and cheap to make; it can shirk the burden of being true.)

YouTube hopes that Creators for Change will have a role-model effect. The virality of YouTube videos has long been driven by imitation: in the site’s early days, clips such as “ Crazy frog brothers ” and “ David After Dentist ” led fans and parodists to reënact their every move. When it comes to political videos, imitation has cut both ways. The perceived popularity of conspiracy videos may have led some YouTubers to make similar clips; conversely, many Creators for Change ambassadors cite other progressive YouTubers as inspirations. (Prajakta Koli based her sketches on those of Lilly Singh , a sketch-comedy YouTuber who has also spoken at the United Nations.) In theory, even just broadcasting the idea that YouTube will reward social-justice content with production dollars and free marketing might encourage a proliferation of videos that denounce hate speech.

And yet, on a platform like YouTube, there are reasons to be skeptical about the potential of what experts call “counterspeech.” Libby Hemphill, a computer-science professor at the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Media Responsibility, studies how different kinds of conversations, from politics to TV criticism, unfold across social media; she also prototypes A.I. tools for rooting out toxic content. “If we frame hate speech or toxicity as a free-speech issue, then the answer is often counterspeech,” she explained. (A misleading video about race and science might be “countered” by the video made by AsapScience.) But, to be effective, counterspeech must be heard. “Recommendation engines don’t just surface content that they think we’ll want to engage with—they also actively hide content that is not what we have actively sought,” Hemphill said. “Our incidental exposure to stuff that we don’t know that we should see is really low.” It may not be enough, in short, to sponsor good content; people who don’t go looking for it must see it.

Theoretically, YouTube could fight hate speech by engineering a point-counterpoint dynamic. In recent years, the platform has applied this technique to speech about terrorism, using the “Redirect Method”: moderators have removed terrorist-recruitment videos while redirecting those who search for them to antiterror and anti-extremist clips. (YouTube doesn’t pay people to create the antiterror videos, but it does handpick them.) A YouTube representative told me that it has no plans to redirect someone who searches for a men’s-rights rant, say, to its Creators for Change–sponsored feminist reply. Perhaps the company worries that treating misogynists the way that it treats ISIS would shatter the illusion that it has cultivated an unbiased marketplace of ideas.

One way to make counterspeech more effective is to dampen the speech that it aims to counter. In March, after a video of a white-supremacist mass shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, went viral, Hunter Walk, a former YouTube executive, tweeted that the company should protect “freedom of speech” but not “freedom of reach.” He suggested that YouTube could suppress toxic videos by delisting them as candidates for its recommendation engine—in essence, he wrote, this would “shadowban” them. (Shadow-banning is so-called because a user might not know that his reach has been curtailed, and because the ban effectively pushes undesirable users into the “shadows” of an online space.) Ideally, people who make such shadow-banned videos could grow frustrated by their limited audiences and change their ways; videos, Walk explained, could be shadow-banned if they were linked to by a significant number of far-right Web havens, such as 8chan and Gab. (Walk’s tweets, which are set to auto-delete, have since disappeared.)

Shadow-banning is an age-old moderation tool: the owners of Internet discussion forums have long used it to keep spammers and harassers from bothering other users. On big social-media platforms, however, this kind of moderation doesn’t necessarily focus on individuals; instead, it affects the way that different kinds of content surface algorithmically. YouTube has published a lengthy list of guidelines that its army of raters can use to give some types of content—clips that contain “extreme gore or violence, without a beneficial purpose,” for example, or that advocate hateful ideas expressed in an “emotional,” “polite,” or even “academic-sounding” way—a low rating. YouTube’s A.I. learns from the ratings to make objectionable videos less likely to appear in its automated recommendations. Individual users won’t necessarily know how their videos have been affected. The ambiguities generated by this system have led some to argue that political shadow-banning is taking place. President Trump and congressional Republicans, in particular, are alarmed by the idea that some version of the practice could be widely employed against conservatives. In April, Ted Cruz held a Senate subcommittee hearing called “Stifling Free Speech: Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse.” In his remarks, he threatened the platforms with regulation; he also brought in witnesses who accused them of liberal bias. (YouTube denies that its raters evaluate recommendations along political lines, and most experts agree that there is no evidence for such a bias.)

Among Cruz’s guests was Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at George Mason University. In his testimony, Kontorovich pondered whether regulation could, in fact, address the issue of bias on search or social platforms. “Actually enforcing ideological neutrality would itself raise First Amendment questions,” he said. Instead, he argued, the best way to address issues of potential bias was with transparency. A technique like shadow-banning might be effective, but it would also stoke paranoia. From this perspective, the clarity of the Creators for Change program adds to its appeal: its videos are prominently labelled.

Engineers at YouTube and other companies are hesitant to detail their algorithmic tweaks for many reasons; among them is the fact that obscure algorithms are harder to exploit. But Serge Abiteboul, a computer-science professor who was tasked by the French government to advise legislators on online hate speech, argues that verifiable solutions are preferable to hidden ones. YouTube has claimed that, since tweaking its systems in January, it has reduced the number of views for recommended videos containing borderline content and harmful misinformation by half. Without transparency and oversight, however, it’s impossible for independent observers to confirm that drop. “Any supervision that’s accepted by society would be better than regulation done in an opaque manner, by the platforms, themselves, alone,” Abiteboul said.

Looking back over the history of YouTube, Micah Schaffer thinks he can see where the company made mistakes. Before YouTube, he had worked at a Web site that showcased shocking videos and images—gruesome accidents, medical deformities. There he saw how such material can attract a niche of avid users while alienating many others. “Bikinis and Nazism have a chilling effect,” he said. YouTube sought to distinguish itself by highlighting more broadly appealing content. It would create an ecosystem in which a large variety of people felt excited about expressing themselves.

The company featured videos it liked, banned others outright, and kept borderline videos off the home page. Still, it allowed some toxic speech to lurk in the corners. “We thought, if you just quarantine the borderline stuff, it doesn’t spill over to the decent people,” he recalled. “And, even if it did, it seemed like there were enough people who would just immediately recognize it was wrong, and it would be O.K.” The events of the past few years have convinced Schaffer that this was an error. The increasing efficiency of the recommendation system drew toxic content into the light in ways that YouTube’s early policymakers hadn’t anticipated. In the end, borderline content changed the tenor and effect of the platform as a whole. “Our underlying premises were flawed,” Schaffer said. “We don’t need YouTube to tell us these people exist. And counterspeech is not a fair burden. Bullshit is infinitely more difficult to combat than it is to spread. YouTube should have course-corrected a long time ago.”

Some experts point out that algorithmic tweaks and counterspeech don’t change the basic structure of YouTube—a structure that encourages the mass uploading of videos from unvetted sources. It’s possible that this structure is fundamentally incompatible with a healthy civic discourse. “It’s not that Jesus came down and said, ‘You must suck up five hundred hours of content per minute, every day,’ ” Sarah T. Roberts, an expert on commercial content moderation at the University of California, Los Angeles, said. “That’s something that they came up with, that they facilitated. We’re inside the parameters of the potentials and possibilities that have been meted out in the architecture and in the economics of these platforms. It’s only been a decade and a half, at most, and it’s so second nature.”

YouTube has denied that rabbit holes leading toward radicalization exist on its platform; it also says that, despite what researchers claim, “extreme” videos are not more engaging or algorithmically favored. At the same time, the company has said that it has tuned its recommendation systems to redirect users who search for borderline content about breaking news toward more authoritative sources. (What counts as “authoritative” among mainstream outlets such as Fox News and CNN is itself a sticking point .) As the Times reported , in a recent article about the apparent power of alt-right YouTubers, the company also appears to have tweaked its recommendation system to push users to watch videos on new and varied subjects. (In theory, helping viewers find new interests will keep them engaged in the long run.) Recently, it also announced that it would give greater control over recommendations to its users, who will now be able to more easily prevent individual YouTube channels from popping up among their suggested videos.

There are commercial reasons, it turns out, for fighting hate speech: according to a survey by the Anti-Defamation League, fifty-three per cent of Americans reported experiencing online hate or harassment in 2018—rates of bigoted harassment were highest among people who identified as L.G.B.T.Q.—and, in response, many spent less time online or deleted their apps. A study released last year, by Google and Stanford University, identified toxic speech as a “rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable comment that is likely to make you leave a discussion.” As part of the Creators for Change program, YouTube has drawn up lesson plans for teachers which encourage students to “use video to find your voice and bring people together.” Teen-agers posting videos disputing toxic ideas are engaged users, too.

I asked YouTube’s representatives why they didn’t use the Redirect Method to serve Creators for Change videos to people who search for hate speech. If they valued what their ambassadors had to say, why wouldn’t they disseminate those messages as effectively as possible? A representative explained that YouTube doesn’t want to “pick winners.” I brought that message back to Libby Hemphill, the computer-science professor. “I wish they would recognize that they already do pick winners,” she said. “Algorithms make decisions we teach them to make, even deep-learning algorithms. They should pick different winners on purpose.” Schaffer suggested that YouTube’s insistence on the appearance of neutrality is “a kind of Stockholm syndrome. I think they’re afraid of upsetting their big creators, and it has interfered with their ability to be aggressive about implementing their values.”

The Creators for Change program is open about its bias and, in that respect, suggests a different way of thinking about our social platforms. Instead of aspiring, unrealistically, to make them value-neutral meeting places—worldwide coffee shops, streaming town squares—we could see them as forums analogous to the United Nations: arenas for discussion and negotiation that have also committed to agreed-upon principles of human dignity and universal rights. The U.N., too, has cultivated celebrity “ambassadors,” such as David Beckham, Jackie Chan, and Angelina Jolie. Together, they promote a vision of the world not merely as it is—a messy place full of violence and oppression—but as we might like it to be. Perhaps this way of conceptualizing social platforms better reflects the scale of the influence they wield.

After YouTube removed ads from Steven Crowder’s channel, he gathered his co-hosts and his lawyer and started a live stream—also on YouTube—to respond. YouTube could keep their money, he said, so long as he could “keep the reach” of his four million followers. (That reach draws in money from fans, who buy merchandise, and sponsors.) Crowder also claimed that YouTube’s partner managers had courted him years ago, saying that they wanted more conservative voices on the platform. He went on, “If they said, ‘Listen, we’ve changed our minds, you cannot say anything that offends anybody and we don’t want conservatives here’—you know what? I’d walk off into the sunset.”

Almost certainly, this claim is a bluff. “YouTube has a complete monopoly on video hosting, and they know it,” Lindz Amer, a queer and nonbinary YouTuber, told the Guardian , after the controversy with Carlos Maza. When Amer tried to leave YouTube for another platform, Vimeo, their average audience size went from a hundred thousand views per video to five.

Recently, Gregory Brown, of AsapScience, also expressed his disappointment with the company. “We opened ourselves up to unbelievable hate after coming out on @YouTube,” he wrote, on Twitter, of his relationship with his co-host, Moffit. “But we ignore it, because we love educating people about science on the platform.” When I spoke to him a few days later, he told me that he was “trying to be as empathetic to YouTube as possible—which, at times, is in conflict with what I really feel.” It hurt to know that it was possible to “make money, right now, on YouTube, by being homophobic.” But Brown also said that he recognized the complexity created by YouTube’s global reach. “YouTube is trying to moderate and keep their values while trying to make money off, literally, the entire world,” he said. At the same time, he continued, “Being able to educate people on this huge scale is so important to me. I still feel that YouTube is the best place to do it.”

Steve Chen, the YouTube co-founder, recalled the platform’s early days, when he often intervened to highlight videos that could only be found on YouTube and that the algorithm might not pick up. He might place amateur footage of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, or documentation of a racist attack at a bus stop in Hong Kong, on the home page. “I remember a video that only had twenty-five views,” he told me. “I said, ‘There’s no way that this piece of content from some photographer in Africa would ever be viewed from around the world without YouTube, so I’m going to feature this.’ ” Creators for Change, he explained, sounded like a “more evolved version of what I was trying to do on the home page—trying to showcase, encourage, and educate users that this is the kind of content that we want on YouTube.” But the technological developments that have made the platform’s global reach possible have also made such efforts more difficult. “Regardless of the proportions or numbers of great content that YouTube wants on the site, it’s the way the algorithm works,” he said. “If you’re watching this type of content, what are the twenty other pieces of content, among the billions, that you’re going to like most? It probably won’t be choosing out of the blue.” Chen, who left YouTube a decade ago, told me that he doesn’t envy the people who have to decide how the system should work. “To be honest, I kind of congratulate myself that I’m no longer with the company, because I wouldn’t know how to deal with it,” he said.

Brown, for his part, wanted the platform to choose a point of view. But, he told me, “If they make decisions about who they’re going to prop up in the algorithm, and make it more clear, I think they would lose money. I think they might lose power.” He paused. “That’s a big test for these companies right now. How are they going to go down in history?”

This article has been updated to include a comment from YouTube regarding the timing of the company's hate-speech-policy rollout.

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Here are the 10 most-viewed Oscars acceptance speeches on YouTube

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

And the Oscar goes to…

After those words come someone’s Academy Awards acceptance speech, which can range from brief to chair-scaling to tear-jerking , helping create an indelible Oscar moment for the winner — think Jennifer Lawrence tripping up the stairs, Roberto Benigni standing atop the theater’s seats, Adrien Brody stealing a kiss from presenter Halle Berry. Some are so popular and iconic that they’ve been watched millions of times on YouTube. Which speeches are the most-viewed of all time?

#10 — Adrien Brody

It may be last on YouTube’s list Top 10 list, but still, with 5.2 million views, people can’t get enough of the acceptance speech kiss seen ’round the world. Watch as Adrien Brody planted one on Halle Berry while accepting Best Actor for his work in The Pianist.

#9 — Sandra Bullock

Sandra Bullock is a fan-favorite, and that popularity translates to her Oscar speech as well, also racking up 5.2 million views for her Best Actress win for The Blind Side.

#8 — Natalie Portman

In 2011, Natalie Portman capped off a highly successful awards season for her work in Black Swan with an Oscar for Best Actress. Her speech has 5.6 million views to boot (er, ballet slipper?)

#7 — Tom Hanks

Though Tom Hanks has won two Oscars, it’s his 1995 speech for Best Actor for Forrest Gump (he won the previous year for Philadelphia ) that runs all the way to No. 7 with 6.1 million views.

#6 — Roberto Benigni

Things go back a little further in time with the sixth most popular speech and its 7.3 million views — that of Roberto Benigni for Best Actor for Life is Beautiful, which involved him excitedly climbing over the chairs in the theater to get to the stage.

#5 — Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence breaks into the Top 5 with her 8.4 million views. She became the second youngest women to win Best Actress in 2013 for her work in Silver Linings Playbook , but perhaps more memorable than the speech itself was the moment she tripped walking up the stairs on her way to accept it.

#4 — Kate Winslet

Coming in fourth with 8.5 million views is Kate Winslet’s Best Actress win for her performance in The Reader, a long overdue victory for the actress on her sixth overall nomination. She hilariously joked about the versions of the speech she’d made as a child with a shampoo bottle.

#3 — Matthew McConaughey

‘Alright, Alright, Alright’ — here’s one we can definitely get behind. Matthew McConaughey lands at No. 3 with 10.1 million views for his 2014 speech for Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club . He capped off an awards season of dapper, if not flashy, tuxedos and thoughtfully provocative speeches with this big win … and, of course, he didn’t miss an opportunity to throw in his famous catchphrase.

#2 — Heath Ledger

The second most-viewed speech at 10.2 million views is Heath Ledger’s 2009 posthumous win for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight. Ledger’s family accepted the award on the late actor’s behalf in a highly emotional moment.

#1 — Leonardo DiCaprio

The Titanic star is king of the world at the top of YouTube’s list, earning 11+ million views for his 2016 win for The Revenant, a victory many of his most ardent fans felt was a long time coming. DiCaprio gave an emotional speech, thanking his cast and crew, his parents, and calling out humanity’s relationship to the natural world and naming climate change the most “urgent threat facing our entire species.”

Be sure to watch the 90th annual Academy Awards this Sunday, March 4, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on ABC to see which new acceptance speeches are worthy of the award — and millions of views. And be sure check out the PEOPLE and Entertainment Weekly Red Carpet Live pre-show at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT for 90 minutes of fashion and awards predictions, which will broadcast live on PEOPLE and EW’s streaming network, PeopleTV , in partnership with Twitter. The show also can be streamed from PEOPLE.com, EW.com, InStyle.com, Time.com, Facebook Live, and YouTube Live.

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What are the most popular speeches of today and why?

Discover the world's most popular speeches from the 21st century. find out how our linguist experts ranked and revealed the secrets behind a good speech..

Speeches can unite the world, there’s no doubt about it. Be they delivered by activists, educators, a political leader, or the world’s best entertainers—one clear message by an individual has the power to connect so many.

Here at Babbel, we know a thing or two about how words and language can connect people. And that’s why we’ve set out to discover the most popular speeches shaping the world we live in today and take a look at what exactly makes a good speech.

With the help of our expert linguists, we'll discover the most popular speeches given by modern-day legends. Finding out why these speeches resonate with so many, our linguists reveal the secret of delivering a memorable speech.

So, how did we rank the famous speeches?

Looking at the world’s most famous modern-day speeches, we gathered YouTube views, TedTalk views and search data to understand which speeches are truly the most popular.

Comparing speeches across the topics of activism, business, creativity, language learning, LGBT+, Oscars, parenting, and politics, we were able to compare the figures to give an average score. You can see our full findings here .

Top 10 most famous speeches of the 21st century

We looked at some of the most viewed and searched speeches in recent history—be they short or long—to figure out which ones are the most popular.

Looking at YouTube and TedTalk views alongside search volume data, we were able to compile a list of the most popular speeches. How many of the world’s most famous speeches have you watched or listened to?

Were there any surprises? Interestingly, Simon Sinek appears twice on the list—a public speaker whose delivery and messages clearly resonate with many.

While you might not be surprised to see Hollywood star Leonardo Di Caprio at the top of the list, the reason he’s at the top may surprise you—if you didn’t already know, he’s super into environmentalism.

Using his platform at the Oscars to shine a light on global warming, an issue which affects us all, his speech left us with an unforgettable, and now famous, quote: “Climate change… is the most urgent threat facing our entire species… let us not take this planet for granted—I do not take tonight for granted.”

Our linguistic expert tells us why Leonardo Di Caprio’s speech resonated with so many of us and why it finds itself positioned as the most popular speech in recent years.

Taylor Hermerding (she/her), Editor in Didactics at Babbel, said:

"What Leo does really cleverly is link his award win, which was for his blockbuster hit, The Revenant, to the topic of climate change. He explains that the film is all about “man’s relationship to the natural world” and that during the time of its making - in 2015 - it was the hottest year on record. The film crew actually had to travel to the most southerly tip of the planet just to find snow to film in. Leo’s use of impactful language and intonation, in addition to his quick and controlled speech, allows him to deliver all of his points both purposefully and with a sense of urgency. It’s hard not to be moved by his words and jump on board with his climate change message. This speech was viewed by 43 million viewers (and counting)."

Top 10 speeches on learning a language

Of course, we also looked at the most popular speeches on learning a language. By speaking another language, we open ourselves up to learning about new cultures and understanding others.

While we know how rewarding learning a new language is, we all still need motivation to get there. So, who are the thought leaders inspiring us to learn a new language?

Looking at the most popular speeches for learning a language, we noticed search interest was relatively low and excluded that metric from the evaluation. However, the views speak for themselves. The YouTube views on some videos are so popular that it ranks top spot!

Revealing the secrets behind a good speech

So we now know what the most popular speeches from the 21st century are, but what topics grab the most attention? And who delivered them?

From our findings of ranked famous speeches we found out:

The professions with the most viewed speeches are writers, artists and poets

The great creatives of the world—our writers, artists and poets—deliver the most popular speeches.

The USA has the most watched speeches

Thought leaders in business, culture and politics—speakers from the USA take the trophy for the most popular public speakers in the English language.

Speeches related to the topic of business are the most popular

Our work day isn’t over at 5pm—it seems we love to think about how to improve our business and be the best at what we do, no matter the time of day.

Female public speakers are listened to the most often

The world is listening to famous speeches by women most often, as compared to their male and nonbinary counterparts.

With the scores now on the doors, were there any surprises? Did you expect an Oscars speech to be the most watched speech in recent history?

The truth is that famous speeches start a conversation, or contribute to one, and allow us to connect with each other and potentially even change the world.

Your checklist to deliver a memorable speech

The world’s most popular speeches give us insight into what messages resonate, and crucially how those messages are delivered. But how could you deliver a memorable speech of your own?

Our expert linguists reveal the speech techniques and strategies used, and which you could try when writing and delivering your next speech.

Embrace emotion - The most powerful speeches are delivered from the heart. Take Matthew McConaughey’s 2014 Oscar acceptance speech, where he is seen to be overcome with emotion, with visibly watery eyes. Don’t be afraid to tear up a bit if the occasion calls for it, like a best friend’s wedding speech for example—it’s a great way to show someone you love them.

Tell a story - Take the audience on a journey with you, telling the story as naturally as possible.The story can be personal, but it doesn’t need to be. It should, however, be engaging and clear.

Slow down your speech - Barack Obama is a great example of a speaker who slows his speech, allowing space and time for the audience to follow the speech and absorb the message. If you’re nervous, it’s natural to want to speed up your speech, but as the old saying goes—practice makes perfect. Rehearse at home and practice by timing or recording yourself.

Use research - Depending on what your speech is about, of course, another important factor of public speaking is researching well and presenting original thought.

Keep it simple - in an age of diminishing concentration , speeches which are delivered clearly help the audience to stay engaged. To stay on track, consider what the one message you want your audience to take away actually is.

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Leo’s use of impactful language and intonation, in addition to his quick and controlled speech

Taylor Hermerding (she/her), Editor in Didactics at Babbel

Leo also uses body language and hand movements to deliver his most prominent points, which become more exaggerated as he talks passionately about the threat facing our “entire species”. This, plus again the fast pace at which he delivers his speech, captures the audience’s attention. His choice of vocabulary is also notedly elevated and emotional, with phrases like ‘politics of greed’ and “Let us not take the world for granted, I do not take this night for granted” which resonated hugely with his Hollywood co-stars and viewers worldwide. DiCaprio also inserts short breaths into his sentences when stopping to thank certain people, or to levy emphasis in places, in this holy grail of unforgettable speeches.

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Hate speech policy

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Hate speech is not allowed on YouTube. We don’t allow content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on any of the following attributes, which indicate a protected group status under YouTube’s policy:

• Gender Identity and Expression
• Nationality
• Immigration Status
• Sexual Orientation
• Victims of a major violent event and their kin
• Veteran Status

If you find content that violates this policy, report it. Instructions for reporting violations of our Community Guidelines are available here . If you've found a few videos or comments that you would like to report, you can report the channel .

What this policy means for you

If you're posting content.

Don’t post content on YouTube if the purpose of that content is to do one or more of the following:

• Encourage violence against individuals or groups based on their protected group status. We don’t allow threats on YouTube, and we treat implied calls for violence as real threats. You can learn more about our policies on threats and harassment .
• Incite hatred against individuals or groups based on their protected group status.

Other types of content that violates this policy

• Dehumanization of individuals or groups by calling them subhuman, comparing them to animals, insects, pests, disease, or any other non-human entity based on their protected group status.
• Praise or glorification of violence against individuals or groups based on their protected group status.
• Use of racial, religious, or other slurs and stereotypes that incite or promote hatred based on protected group status. This can take the form of speech, text, or imagery promoting these stereotypes or treating them as factual.
• Claim that individuals or groups are physically or mentally inferior, deficient, or diseased based on their protected group status. This includes statements that one group is less than another, calling them less intelligent, less capable, or damaged. This also includes calls for the subjugation or domination over individuals or groups based on their protected group status.
• Promotion of hateful supremacism by alleging the superiority of a group over those with protected group status to justify violence, discrimination, segregation, or exclusion. This includes content containing hateful supremacist propaganda, such as the recruitment of new members or requests for financial support for their ideology, and music videos promoting hateful supremacism in the lyrics, metadata, or imagery.
• Conspiratorial claims that individuals or groups are evil, corrupt, or malicious based on their protected group status.
• Denial or minimization of a well-documented, major violent event or the victimhood of such an event.
• Attacks on individuals or groups based on their emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attraction to other people.

Educational, documentary, scientific, and artistic content

We may allow content that includes hate speech if that content includes additional educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context. Additional context may include condemning, refuting, including opposing views, or satirizing hate speech. This is not a pass to promote hate speech. Examples include:

• A documentary about a hate group: Educational content that isn’t supporting the group or promoting ideas would be allowed. A documentary promoting violence or hatred wouldn’t be allowed.
• A documentary about the scientific study of humans: A documentary about how theories have changed over time, even if it includes theories about the inferiority or superiority of specific groups, would be allowed because it’s educational. We won’t allow a documentary claiming there's scientific evidence today that an individual or group is inferior or subhuman.
• Historical footage of an event, like WWII, which doesn't promote violence or hatred. 

This policy applies to videos, video descriptions, comments, live streams, and any other YouTube product or feature. Please note these policies also apply to external links in your content. This can include clickable URLs, verbally directing users to other sites in video, as well as other forms. 

For educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic content that includes hate speech, this context must appear in the images or audio of the video itself. Providing it in the title or description is insufficient.

Monetization and other penalties 

In some rare cases, we may remove content or issue other penalties when a creator:

• Repeatedly encourages abusive audience behavior.
• Repeatedly targets, insults, and abuses a group based on protected group status across multiple uploads.
• Exposes a group with protected group status to risks of physical harm based on the local social or political context.
• Creates content that harms the YouTube ecosystem by persistently inciting hostility against a group with protected group status for personal financial gain.

Here are examples of hate speech not allowed on YouTube.

• “I’m glad this [violent event] happened. They got what they deserved [referring to people with protected group status].”
• “[People with protected group status] are dogs” or “[people with protected group status] are like animals.”

More examples

• “Get out there and punch a [person with protected group status].”
• “Everyone in [groups with protected group status] are criminals and thugs.”
• “[Person with protected group status] is scum of the earth.”
• “[People with protected group status] are a disease.”
• “[People with protected group status] are less intelligent than us because their brains are smaller.”
• “[Group with protected group status] threaten our existence, so we should drive them out at every chance we get.”
• “[Group with protected group status] have an agenda to run the world and get rid of us.”
• “[Protected group status] is just a form of mental illness that needs to be cured.”
• “[Person with protected group status] shouldn't be educated in schools because they shouldn't be educated at all.”
• “All of the so-called victims of this violent event are actors. No one was hurt, and this is just a false flag.”
• “People died in the event, but a truly insignificant number.”
• Shouting “[people with protected group status] are pests!” at someone regardless of whether the person does or does not have the alleged protected group status. 
• Video game content which has been developed or modified (“modded”) to promote violence or hatred against a group with any of the attributes noted above.

Please remember these are just some examples, and don't post content if you think it might violate this policy.

What happens if content violates this policy

If your content violates this policy, we will remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If we can’t verify that a link you post is safe, we may remove the link. Note that violative URLs posted within the video itself or in the video’s metadata may result in the video being removed.

If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you'll likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. You will have the chance to take a policy training to allow the warning to expire after 90 days. However, if the same policy is violated within that 90 day window, the warning will not expire and your channel will be given a strike. If you violate a different policy after completing the training, you will get another warning.

If you get 3 strikes within 90 days, your channel will be terminated. Learn more about our strikes system .

We may terminate your channel or account for repeated violations of the Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. We may also terminate your channel or account after a single case of severe abuse, or when the channel is dedicated to a policy violation. We may prevent repeat offenders from taking policy trainings in the future. Learn more about channel or account terminations .

If we think your content comes close to hate speech, we may limit YouTube features available for that content. You can learn more about limited features here .

• The importance of context
• Recent transparency report
• Limited features for certain videos

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News Analysis

Free Speech in the Age of YouTube

By Somini Sengupta

• Sept. 22, 2012

San Francisco

COMPANIES are usually accountable to no one but their shareholders.

Internet companies are a different breed. Because they traffic in speech — rather than, say, corn syrup or warplanes — they make decisions every day about what kind of expression is allowed where. And occasionally they come under pressure to explain how they decide, on whose laws and values they rely, and how they distinguish between toxic speech that must be taken down and that which can remain.

The storm over an incendiary anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube has stirred fresh debate on these issues. Google, which owns YouTube, restricted access to the video in Egypt and Libya, after the killing of a United States ambassador and three other Americans. Then, it pulled the plug on the video in five other countries, where the content violated local laws.

Some countries blocked YouTube altogether, though that didn’t stop the bloodshed: in Pakistan, where elections are to be scheduled soon, riots on Friday left a death toll of 19.

The company pointed to its internal edicts to explain why it rebuffed calls to take down the video altogether. It did not meet its definition of hate speech, YouTube said , and so it allowed the video to stay up on the Web. It didn’t say very much more.

That explanation revealed not only the challenges that confront companies like Google but also how opaque they can be in explaining their verdicts on what can be said on their platforms. Google, Facebook and Twitter receive hundreds of thousands of complaints about content every week.

“We are just awakening to the need for some scrutiny or oversight or public attention to the decisions of the most powerful private speech controllers,” said Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor who briefly advised the Obama administration on consumer protection regulations online.

Google was right, Mr. Wu believes, to selectively restrict access to the crude anti-Islam video in light of the extraordinary violence that broke out. But he said the public deserved to know more about how private firms made those decisions in the first place, every day, all over the world. After all, he added, they are setting case law, just as courts do in sovereign countries.

Mr. Wu offered some unsolicited advice: Why not set up an oversight board of regional experts or serious YouTube users from around the world to make the especially tough decisions?

Google has not responded to his proposal, which he outlined in a blog post for The New Republic.

Certainly, the scale and nature of YouTube makes this a daunting task. Any analysis requires combing through over a billion videos and overlaying that against the laws and mores of different countries. It’s unclear whether expert panels would allow for unpopular minority opinion anyway. The company said in a statement on Friday that, like newspapers, it, too, made “nuanced” judgments about content: “It’s why user-generated content sites typically have clear community guidelines and remove videos or posts that break them.”

Privately, companies have been wrestling with these issues for some time.

The Global Network Initiative, a conclave of executives, academics and advocates, has issued voluntary guidelines on how to respond to government requests to filter content.

And the Anti-Defamation League has convened executives, government officials and advocates to discuss how to define hate speech and what to do about it.

Hate speech is a pliable notion, and there will be arguments about whether it covers speech that is likely to lead to violence (think Rwanda) or demeans a group (think Holocaust denial), just as there will be calls for absolute free expression.

Behind closed doors, Internet companies routinely make tough decisions on content.

Apple and Google earlier this year yanked a mobile application produced by Hezbollah. In 2010, YouTube removed links to speeches by an American-born cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, in which he advocated terrorist violence; at the time, the company said it proscribed posts that could incite “violent acts.”

ON rare occasions, Google has taken steps to educate users about offensive content. For instance, the top results that come up when you search for the word “Jew” include a link to a virulently anti-Jewish site, followed by a promoted link from Google, boxed in pink. It links to a page that lays out Google’s rationale: the company says it does not censor search results, despite complaints.

Susan Benesch, who studies hate speech that incites violence, said it would be wise to have many more explanations like this, not least to promote debate. “They certainly don’t have to,” said Ms. Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project at the World Policy Institute. “But we can encourage them to because of the enormous power they have.”

The companies point out that they obey the laws of every country in which they do business. And their employees and algorithms vet content that may violate their user guidelines, which are public.

YouTube prohibits hate speech, which it defines as that which “attacks or demeans a group” based on its race, religion and so on; Facebook’s hate speech ban likewise covers “content that attacks people” on the basis of identity. Google and Facebook prohibit hate speech; Twitter does not explicitly ban it. And anyway, legal scholars say, it is exceedingly difficult to devise a universal definition of hate speech.

Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, said he hoped the violence over the video would encourage a nuanced conversation about how to safeguard free expression with other values, like public safety. “It’s really about at what point does speech becomes action; that’s a boundary that becomes difficult to draw, and it’s a slippery slope,” Mr. Telhami said.

He cautioned that some countries, like Russia, which threatened to block YouTube altogether, would be thrilled to have any excuse to squelch speech. “Does Russia really care about this film?” Mr. Telhami asked.

International law does not protect speech that is designed to cause violence. Several people have been convicted in international courts for incitement to genocide in Rwanda.

One of the challenges of the digital age, as the YouTube case shows, is that speech articulated in one part of the world can spark mayhem in another. Can the companies that run those speech platforms predict what words and images might set off carnage elsewhere? Whoever builds that algorithm may end up saving lives.

Somini Sengupta is a technology correspondent for The New York Times.

How-To Geek

How to get the transcript of a youtube video.

See a full read-out of the YouTube captions.

Quick Links

How to get youtube transcripts on desktop, how to get youtube transcripts on iphone and android, key takeaways.

To get the transcript for a YouTube video on a desktop browser, open the YouTube video, click on the three dots below the video title, and then click "Show Transcript." On an iPhone, iPad, or Android device, tap the downward-facing arrow next to the title, then tap "Show Transcript."

Closed captions are a handy feature on YouTube, but they only appear in real-time along with the video. You can get a transcript of those captions to read at your own speed. It works on desktops, iPhones, and Android.

The full transcript of a YouTube video can be useful for a variety of reasons. You can avoid manually transcribing quotes by copying the direct text. It's also handy to be able to search for specific words or parts of the video by text.

On a desktop or laptop, head on over to YouTube.com in a web browser such as Google Chrome and open a video to watch.

Next, click the three-dot menu icon underneath the title of the video.

Select "Show Transcript" from the menu.

The transcript box will open and you'll see the captions listed along with timestamps. You can click a caption to jump to that part of the video.

Lastly, at the bottom of the transcript box, you can switch between the available languages.

To get a transcript on mobile, open the YouTube app on your iPhone , iPad , or Android device and select a video to watch.

Next, tap the down arrow on the right side of the video title.

The video description will appear along with a "Show Transcript" button, tap it.

The captions will appear in a box listed along with timestamps. You can tap a caption to jump to that part of the video.

Tap the three-dot menu icon to switch between the available languages.

That's it! This is one of those lesser-known YouTube features that can be really handy in certain situations. It's a nice trick to know about.

Related: PSA: Double-tap YouTube with 2 Fingers to Skip Chapters

Text to speech for Youtube Videos

As a content creator on YouTube, it can be challenging to produce high-quality videos on a consistent basis. One way to make the process easier and more efficient is to use text-to-speech (TTS) services for your videos.

Create text to voice

Create narration for YouTube videos

Can i use text to speech on youtube, will using text-to-speech cause copyright strikes on youtube, can text to speech be monetized on youtube, how to add text to speech in youtube videos.

TTS technology has come a long way in recent years, with many high-quality options now available. Using TTS services allows you to quickly and easily create voiceovers for your videos without having to spend hours recording and editing audio.

There are several benefits to using TTS for your YouTube videos. First, it saves time. Instead of spending hours recording and editing audio, you can simply type out your script and have the TTS software generate a professional-sounding voiceover. This allows you to focus on other aspects of video production, such as creating engaging visuals and compelling storylines.

Another benefit of TTS is that it is cost-effective. Many TTS services offer affordable plans, which means that you can save money on hiring professional voice actors, and save time by not recording the audio yourself. Additionally, the software can be used again and again, to make consistent output, making it a long-term investment.

TTS technology can also help to improve the accessibility of your videos. Many TTS services offer a range of voices and languages, which means that you can create videos that can be understood by a wider audience. This can be especially useful if you create videos for a global audience. Many TTS providers (including Narakeet) will help you generate subtitle and closed caption files automatically, which can then be synchronized with your video to provide accessibility for viewers with hearing impairments

Using TTS services for your YouTube videos can save time, save money, and improve the accessibility of your content. If you’re looking to streamline your video production process and create professional-sounding voiceovers, consider using TTS technology.

There is a lot of confusion around does YouTube allow text to speech. Text to Speech is allowed on YouTube, but you should not abuse the technology to make boring or spammy content.

Do people use text to speech for YouTube? Yes, they absolutely do. Our YouTube channel, with demo videos, uses only text to speech. Lots of Narakeet customers build videos for YouTube. YouTube does not have specific rules around prohibiting text to speech or generated content, but they have rules around

A common question we get from users is if text to speech will cause copyright strikes on YouTube. This depends on the text to speech provider you use, and the rights they secured to the voices. Some providers prevent content streaming and commercial use, some providers allow it.

All text to speech voices provided by Narakeet can be used commercially, and are not subject to third-party copyright. Any content you create with Narakeet belongs to you. If you use a different text to speech provider, make sure to check their licensing around copyright and streaming rights.

In summary, if you have a commercial account, then you have full commercial rights to use our voices, and there will be no problem with the copyright from the perspective of using our voices. The copyright will depend on the text you use for audio, or the materials you use for a video. For example:

If you create an audio from original/your own content, then you will own the copyright.

If you create audio from someone else’s material (an article or a book someone else published), then you will need to get usage rights for that, or it will cause copyright issues. This is not depending on the voices, but on the source material.

YouTube monetization is a popular topic among content creators. While YouTube allows creators to earn money from their videos, it’s important to understand the rules around what content is eligible for monetization. With automated voice over for video, text to speech YouTube monetization often comes up as big topic.

Of course, whether some content can be monetized or not is finally up to YouTube to decide. This reflects our understanding of the current rules, but it’s best to check with YouTube support if in doubt.

The official YouTube rules state that you can monetize content you created, or that you have commercial rights to use. This means that you need to secure commercial usage rights for any text to speech content included in the video. Different text to speech providers have different rules about this, and it is important to understand the licensing before using TTS content for YouTube.

With Narakeet, as long as you create the content using a commercial account, you have the rights to use the sound commercially. This means that commercial users are allowed to monetize TTS content in YouTube videos, as far as we are concerned.

YouTube has additional rules that can cause your videos to lose monetisation, that do not specifically deal with text to speech, but prevent common abuses. In particular, check their rules around content that YouTube calls advertiser friendly . Don’t use inappropriate language, create harmful or derogatory comments, shocking or disturbing content, and stay away from controversial issues. Text-to-speech videos are allowed on YouTube, but they should not be used for repetitive or generic content. Instead, text-to-speech videos should be used to add value to your content and engage with your audience in a meaningful way.

First, it’s important to note that repetitive or unoriginal content cannot be monetized on YouTube. This means that if you’re copying and pasting content from other sources or uploading the same video multiple times, you won’t be able to earn money from your videos.

On the other hand, original content that is advertiser friendly is eligible for monetization. This means that if you’re creating unique and engaging videos, you may be able to earn money from them through advertising.

In conclusion, to be eligible for YouTube monetization, it’s important to create original, advertiser-friendly content that adds value to the platform. By following these guidelines, you can start earning money from your YouTube videos.

There are two options how you can add TTS for YouTube videos:

• You can use Narakeet as a text to speech AI video maker for Youtube. Start with a Powerpoint slide deck, add the text to speech voiceover into presenter notes, and then upload the presentation to Narakeet. Choose narrator YouTube voice from 700 voices in 90 and convert your presentation to a video, then publish to YouTube. Use our Powerpoint to Video tool for this use case.
• Use Narakeet to create text to speech voice narration, as a MP3 or a Wav file, then merge with your video in your own video editor. This will allow you to add automated voice over for video recorded or edited outside Narakeet. Use our Text to Audio tool for this use case.

Is text to speech allowed on YouTube?

Table of Contents

Is text to speech allowed on YouTube? It is but there are restrictions. Here’s a complete guide to using TTS on YouTube without breaking any rules.

Are you considering using text to speech (TTS) software in your YouTube videos? Perhaps you want to create voiceovers for your videos or make them more accessible to people with disabilities.

However, you may be hesitant to use TTS due to concerns about copyright infringement and the risk of losing monetization on your YouTube channel. This article will explore whether TTS is allowed on YouTube and how it may affect your ability to monetize your content.

What is text to speech?

Before discussing TTS on YouTube let us take a brief overview about what TTS software is and for what purposes it is used. TTS software is a form of speech synthesis that converts written wording into spoken content. The software is widely used for different purposes including social media, audiobooks , podcasts , and video content.

For instance, this speech technology can make free voice overs for Youtube movies without any need for human voiceover actors. For many people, TTS is used to narrate Reddit stories, news articles, memes, and different material. Voice recordings can be time consuming and exhausting than recording voice.

If you are a busy content creator, using text to speech in your videos rather than your voice is a superb way to boost your workflow. Rapidly, that is how you can attract a lot of new subscribers and earn faster money.

Additionally, some text to speech software offers an option of exporting automatic transcriptions that one can utilize as closed captions in their videos. Your videos will be more accessible for deaf individuals.

According to YouTube’s Terms of Service, there are no restrictions on using text to speech in your videos. This means you can use TTS software to create voiceovers for your YouTube videos without worrying about violating YouTube’s policies.

However, note that the content you create with TTS software must still comply with YouTube’s community guidelines. For example, your content must not contain hate speech or violent or graphic content.

If you create audio using your own original content for commercial use, you will own the copyright. However, if you create audio using someone else’s material, such as an article or a book, you will need to obtain rights for it. Copyright issues can arise if you use someone else’s material without permission, regardless of the text to speech voices used.

Moreover, the right to use TTS voices will depend on the text to speech provider that you choose and the rights they have obtained for their voices. While some providers allow commercial use and content streaming, others may prohibit it.

Can you monetize YouTube videos with text to speech AI voices?

YouTube’s TTS voice technology enables content producers to generate revenue off their videos. Since the TTS videos adhere to YouTube’s monetization policies and content guidelines, including being advertiser-friendly thus qualifying for AdSense, sponsorship, or any other form of income generation.

It is however important to mention that when one wants to commercialize services through TTS voices like audio books and others, one must seek permission from TTS software provider or any relevant copy rights authority thereof.

In general, it is okay to monetize content in the public domain through adding text to voice over , though you should consult first with your TTS provider’s terms of services or conditions prior to activating monetization.

When considering making money from your videos, investigating various speech apps’ terms and policies can be very useful in reducing headaches later.

Besides, the content creations must utilize top notch Text-To-Speech AI voice generators with voices that are as near to human, possibly. Some of the other essential considerations that need to be made while choosing a text to speech software entail price, various tongues as well as its usefulness for instance education.

How text-to-speech can maximize reach on YouTube

Using text-to-speech on YouTube can really help your videos reach more people . Imagine someone wanting to understand the words in your video without listening. With tools like “youtube to text free” converters, they can easily read what’s being said.

Plus, if you’re on a tight budget and need a voice for your video, text-to-speech offers a free voice over option. This means you don’t have to spend money on hiring someone to speak for you.

And if you’ve got a video and want to turn it into written words, a “youtube video to text converter” can do that job. By using these tools, your YouTube content becomes more accessible to a wider audience, helping you connect with more viewers.

Breaking language barriers with text-to-speech

Speaking of advantages, one more lies in the power of text-to-speech technologies to overcome linguistic barriers. With YouTube being a world-wide platform, allowing for subtitles and text-to-speech functions in several other languages would bring more of a fan base to your channel.

How about engaging viewers from any part of the world irrespective of their mother tongue? You can also make it possible for people who are not good at the language of origin by incorporating text-to-speech in numerous languages, rendering your content accessible and comprehensible.

This inclusivity is not only increasing your audience share but also opening up for further growth and development opportunities. With a diversified group of viewers, you will be able to create an online channel that is both globally recognized for its relevance and attracts followers from all corners of the world.

Attracting more diverse audiences with text-to-speech technology

This includes facilitating linguistic as well as cultural exchange by breaking the communication gap using text-to-speech technology. You can now enlist viewers from a diversity of backgrounds to engage with your content. Such viewers will have an opportunity to view or learn about other perspectives thereby expanding their horizon.

Finally, adopting text-to-speech system in your YouTube channel will go a long way towards improving users’ satisfaction, as well as bridging language gap. The audience will enjoy the experience even better because it is dynamic and interactive thereby enhancing viewer retention, attachment or rather connection with the audience.

Also, offering multilingual text-to-speech features will attract more audiences, thereby inviting opportunities to grow and expand globally. Now that you know the power of Text to speech to expand your reach, it’s time to learn how to use it with your YouTube Channel.

Steps to implement text-to-speech on your YouTube channel

Now that you’re familiar with some of the top text-to-speech tools, let’s explore the steps to implement this technology on your YouTube channel:

Step 1: Choosing the Right Text-to-Speech Tool

Selecting a Spoken Language Conversion Programme. For example, this means that you will have to assess such features as voice options, personalization options, and compliance with your own workflow. You do not have to rush when it comes to selecting any tool because there are a lot of tools out there waiting for you.

Step 2: Voice From Pen

Having that in mind, select a text-to-speech tool and continue by turning your written material into sound. Each tool would have its own set of instructions which would make it fairly easy for each tool, but instructions may differ from one tool to another. Paste in your text, specify the tone and conditions; let’s do the rest together with a ready-to-use.

Step 3: Upload the audio files with your YouTube clips.

Now it is time to enhance your YouTube videos, audio files provided by you are ready. Take the audio recordings and insert it right there in your video so that the audience may hear instead of read. This does not only offer accessibility for visually handicapped persons; it also gives your publication another perspective.

In this manner, you can easily incorporate Text-to-Speech to your YouTube video blog so that your audience can have a one-of-a-kind and thrilling experience. So why wait? Discovering the World of Text-to-Speech: Revolutionizing Your YouTube Channel.

YouTube text to speech made easy with Speechify

Speechify is an innovative text to speech software tool that allows content creators to make their YouTube videos more lively, accessible, and entertaining. As text to speech videos are allowed on YouTube, Speechify provides a simple and effective solution to create high-quality audio files for video content.

With its user-friendly interface, Speechify is available across major platforms and offers a wide range of natural-sounding voices in different languages. For example, you can choose a Spanish female voice or a British male voice for your videos, among many other options, and export that voice in many formats, including MP3 or WAV files.

It also pairs nicely with video editing software. Whether you’re a YouTuber, podcaster, video editor, or simply looking to create original content, Speechify is the perfect tool to take your video content to the next level. Try Speechify for free today and see the difference for yourself.

Can you get demonetized for using TTS?

No policy prohibits the use of TTS for YouTube monetization, so as long as the content complies with YouTube’s community guidelines, it should be eligible for monetization.

Is text to speech copyrighted?

The synthetic voices used in TTS software are typically created by speech synthesis companies and are protected by copyright. However, using TTS software to create derivative works, such as voiceovers, may fall under fair use exceptions.

Is text to speech to YouTube considered a violation of the YouTube terms of service?

No, text to speech is allowed on YouTube and is not considered a violation of the platform’s terms of service. However, users should ensure that they’re using text to speech in accordance with the provider’s policies and with respect to the original creators.

What is the difference between TTS and ASR?

TTS refers to converting text into synthetic speech, while ASR stands for Automatic Speech Recognition, which refers to transcribing spoken language into text. Text to speech (TTS) enables the device to “communicate” its textual information through sound. Meanwhile, speech recognition can serve as an input method, wither for dictation or device control.

What are the advantages of using text to speech?

Text to speech can make videos more accessible for people with disabilities, provide voiceovers for video content, and create high-quality audio files for podcasts or audiobooks. It can also save time and money compared to hiring human voice actors.

What are the best text to speech tools for YouTube?

Some popular text to speech tools for YouTube include Speechify, Speechelo, and NaturalReader. These tools offer a variety of voices and languages, as well as features such as real-time synthesis, different voice styles, and natural-sounding voices.

Can I use tools like Speechelo, one of the best text to speech options, instead of human voice actors for my YouTube videos?

Absolutely! You can use tools like Speechelo or Speechify to create voiceovers for your YouTube videos. These tools offer different voices, letting you pick the one that sounds best for your content. But even if tools like Speechelo can sound like a real human, they might not express feelings in real-time like a person would.

If your video has transitions that need to show strong emotions or special voice tones, using your own voice or hiring real voice actors might be a better choice. And if you’re aiming to make money from your YouTube videos, avoid using templated content. Make sure your voiceovers are original and offer educational value. After all, YouTube and its viewers prefer videos that feel genuine and teach something useful.

Should YouTube creators use their own voice or free text-to-speech tools for teaching videos?

Using their own voice in videos can help creators connect directly with their audience. It feels personal, like a real-time chat. But if a creator isn’t confident in their voice or lacks the right equipment, they can turn to free text-to-speech tools.

These tools can still convey the educational value of the content. But it’s crucial to choose a tool that sounds as close to a real human as possible. This keeps viewers interested and makes transitions in the video smoother. With so many tools available, creators should test a few and pick the best one for their videos.

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Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

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New Report Claims YouTube Is Cashing in on Misogyny, Racism, and Targeted Harassment

By CT Jones

On YouTube , engagement is king. The platform, which thrives on its dual status as both a social media network and news space, pays creators handsomely for making videos that get large amounts of views and interactions from any given audience. To keep the worst out, the sheer influx of content is moderated with a series of community guidelines that are intended to “make YouTube a safer community” while still giving creators freedom, according to the site. 

But a new investigation by research firm Bot Sentinel found at least two dozen YouTube channels with “flagrant” policy violations were allowed to continue posting without censure from YouTube moderators. Even more alarming: they’re still getting paid. 

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When contacted for comment, a YouTube spokesperson, who has not seen the report, said that the site takes these sorts of violations seriously: “We’re committed to rigorously enforcing these policies equally for all creators, and encourage any user to flag content they believe violates our Community Guidelines.”

Under Youtube’s current community guidelines, the site prohibits “malicious insults” focused on famous or identifiable individuals or based on people’s appearances or status (like race, or being a survivor of domestic abuse). But according to the report, channels that focus their content on reactions and opinions of Markle and Heard are often allowed to post defamatory content entirely unchecked. Others employ deceptive practices, like including thumbnails that don’t correlate to a video’s content in order to get past moderators. According to the report, these channels aren’t slipping under the radar — they’re commonplace. 

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Cashing in on the public’s morbid fascination with the Johnny Deep trial, one creator made over 128 videos making hurtful comments about Heard’s body and defamatory claims about her testimony in the trial. Within the videos, Heard’s name was mentioned over six thousand times, according to the report. Another YouTuber continually posts policy-violating threats against Markle and has yet to be removed from the site. In one live video, the YouTuber expressed his belief that Markle deserves to be “strangled to death” and said as recently as Monday that Markle and her husband, Prince Harry, should be “shot at dawn.” Bouzy tells Rolling Stone that he personally reported the videos multiple times to both YouTube and an individual at Google but the videos have remained up. Less than an hour after a request for comment on multiple specific videos, YouTube pulled at least two videos down for violating the site’s policy on harassment and bullying.

“Upon review, we removed two videos shared by Rolling Stone for violating our harassment and cyberbullying policies , which prohibit targeting an individual with threats or prolonged and malicious insults based on protected attributes,” the YouTube spokesperson says, adding that they were still reviewing two additional videos flagged by Rolling Stone and said they will take “appropriate action” if the content violates Community Guidelines.

Why should this matter to the average person? According to Bouzy, a lack of follow-through with Youtube content moderation only puts the average person in more danger. In addition to these videos pushing a narrative of racism and misogyny that could twist a viewer’s worldview, Bouzy believes unchecked policies mean a higher likelihood of targeted harassment towards all people, like journalists or private individuals. In releasing the report, Bouzy tells Rolling Stone that he’s not trying to target free speech. He just wants Youtube to enforce its own policies. 

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This story has been updated to include that Bot Sentinel had previously been a client of Amber Heard’s legal team.

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Indian opposition accuses modi of hate speech after he calls muslims 'infiltrators'.

Krutika Pathi

Associated Press

NEW DELHI – India's main opposition party is accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of hate speech after he called Muslims “infiltrators" and used some of his most incendiary rhetoric to date about the minority faith.

At a rally on Sunday in the western state of Rajasthan, Modi said that when the Congress party was in government, “they said Muslims have the first right over the country’s resources.” If it returns to power, the party “will gather all your wealth and distribute it among those who have more children,” he said as the crowd applauded.

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“They will distribute it among infiltrators,” he continued, saying, “Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to infiltrators?”

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a spokesperson for Congress, called the prime minister’s remarks “deeply, deeply objectionable” and said the party on Monday had sought action from the Election Commission of India, which oversees the six-week voting period.

The remarks sparked fierce criticism for peddling anti-Muslim tropes, and for breaking election rules which bar candidates from engaging in any activity that aggravates religious tensions. The Election Commission of India’s model code of conduct forbids candidates to “appeal to caste or communal feelings” to secure votes.

Asaduddin Owaidi, a Muslim lawmaker and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen party, said on Sunday: “Modi today called Muslims infiltrators and people with many children. Since 2002 till this day, the only Modi guarantee has been to abuse Muslims and get votes.”

Critics of Modi — an avowed Hindu nationalist — say India’s tradition of diversity and secularism has come under attack since his party won power in 2014 and returned for a second term in 2019. They accuse Modi’s BJP of fostering religious intolerance and sometimes even violence. The party denies the accusation and say their policies benefit all Indians.

But rights groups say that attacks against minorities has become more brazen under Modi. Scores of Muslims have been lynched by Hindu mobs over allegations of eating beef or smuggling cows, an animal considered holy to Hindus. Muslim businesses have been boycotted, their homes and businesses have been bulldozed and places of worship set on fire . Some open calls have been made for their genocide .

Modi’s remarks on Sunday were based on a 2006 statement by then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress party. Singh said that India’s lower-castes, tribes, women and, “in particular the Muslim minority” were empowered to share in the country’s development equally.

“They must have the first claim on resources,” Singh had said. A day later, his office clarified that Singh was referring to all of the disadvantaged groups.

Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party are expected to win, according to most surveys. The results come out on June 4.

The Congress party’s president, Mallikarjun Kharge, described Modi’s comments as “hate speech.” “In the history of India, no prime minister has lowered the dignity of his post as much as Modi has,” Kharge wrote on social media platform X.

In its petition to the election commission, the party said that Modi and the BJP have repeatedly used religion, religious symbols and sentiments in their election campaign with impunity. “These actions have been further bolstered by the commission’s inaction in penalising the prime minister and the BJP for their blatant violations of electoral laws,” it said.

The commission’s code of conduct is not legally binding, but it can issue notices and suspend campaigners for a certain amount of time over violations.

“We decline comment,” a spokesperson for the commission told the Press Trust of India news agency on Monday.

In his speech, Modi also referred to a Hindu nationalist myth that Muslims were overtaking the Hindu population by having more children. Hindus comprise 80% of India's 1.4 billion population, while the country's 200 million Muslims make up 14%. Official data shows that fertility rates among Muslims have dropped the fastest among religious groups in recent decades, from 4.4 in 1992-93 to 2.3 between 2019-21, just a bit higher than Hindus at 1.94.

Modi’s BJP has previously referred to Muslims as infiltrators and cast them as illegal migrants who crossed into India from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Several states run by the BJP have also made laws that restrict interfaith marriage, citing the myth of “love jihad,” an unproven conspiracy theory used by Hindu hard-line groups to accuse Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.

Through it all, Modi has maintained a conspicuous silence, which critics say has emboldened some of his most extreme supporters and enabled more hate speech against Muslims.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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What USC Got Wrong When It Canceled Its Valedictorian’s Speech

I’ve seen this kind of mistake before..

On Monday, Andrew Guzman, the provost of the University of Southern California, sent a letter  to the campus community announcing the cancellation of the speech by the student valedictorian. Concerned with the “intensity of feelings” around the Middle East and accompanying risks to security, he wrote, “tradition must give way to safety.”

There is no question that universities have a duty to maintain campus safety during graduation ceremonies. Campus administrators are responsible for the safety of tens of thousands of students and their friends and families at a very public venue during this period. They want everyone to share a memorable moment of recognition of accomplishment, and to be safe while doing so.

Yet the provost’s letter sounded all too familiar to me. For six years, I served as the United Nations’ principal monitor of freedom of expression worldwide. In that role, I repeatedly saw governments shutting down public speech to prioritize vague assertions of national security or public order over the rights of its citizens.

This context helps us understand why USC’s decision is so troubling. For as much as Guzman asserted that “the decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech,” he failed to demonstrate the necessity of this draconian measure. As such, the action is clearly an interference with free speech—the question is whether it was justified.

The student selected as valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, earned the honor, the result of a faculty recommendation that Guzman himself approved. With nearly perfect grades, a major in biomedical engineering, and a minor in genocide studies, Tabassum presents the kind of profile that any university would be thrilled to celebrate—hardworking, successful, committed to science and society, engaged in the life of her campus.

And like so many young people today, she has thoughts about justice and the wider world of which she is a part. Specifically, she supports the pro-Palestine activism that has grown across the world, especially on college campuses. This is obvious because she linked to a pro-Palestine website on her Instagram page and liked posts from a campus organization favoring Palestinian rights.

Many find those websites, and those views, objectionable. That’s fine: Everyone enjoys the right to disagree and object. According to reporting in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere, those associations and views caused pro-Israel groups to launch a campaign against her, and some unnamed individuals to issue threats.

The USC leadership caved to these efforts. Asserting that Tabassum had no “entitlement” to speak, as the provost’s letter emphasized, is beside the point. USC pulled her from the podium because, it appears, it concluded that the  reactions to  her views and associations—perhaps her valedictory speech—could somehow threaten public safety or disrupt commencement. Even Guzman’s letter makes this plain: He made sure to note that the criteria for selection did not include candidates’ “social media presence,” implying that he would not have approved her as valedictorian if he had known her views.

The question is not whether the university has a significant interest in a safe celebration—it obviously does. The question is whether it has shown that the steps it took were necessary and proportionate to ensure that kind of environment. And here is where USC administrators have failed. They did not demonstrate that it was necessary to cancel Tabassum’s speech. They did not show, or even allege, that Tabassum would use the moment to incite any kind of disruption. There is no evidence that the university considered what a security arrangement might look like to protect Tabassum and all participants at graduation. There is no evidence that it considered or offered alternatives to canceling her speech altogether.

In short, Tabassum has been penalized while those making the threats have secured a victory. USC’s choice came with obvious costs, depriving Tabassum of a speaking role and her classmates of hearing one of their most academically successful members.

USC gave opponents of Tabassum’s views the “heckler’s veto.” The lesson seems to be: If you don’t like a speaker, complain and threaten disruption to get your way. The risks to campus free speech are obvious. Once a school starts down this path, there is no end to political tests in which university administrators bless certain views—those that do not stir up intense feelings—and reject others. That is the path of campus authoritarianism, something American students have been fighting against since at least 1964.

Schools like USC will forever face pressure to pick students without a political backstory, without convictions or passions that spark dissent or make some uncomfortable. Universities face increasingly strident calls, inside and outside their campuses, for them to limit speech on grounds that have nothing to do with their academic missions. Now, more than ever, members of campus leadership must stand up for their students, their faculties, and their communities in the face of threats—and not only teach but practice the centrality of freedom of expression in democratic societies like ours.

‘Infiltrators’: Modi accused of anti-Muslim hate speech amid India election

The Indian PM turned to old anti-Muslim tropes in an election rally, potentially signalling a shift in his campaign strategy, say analysts.

New Delhi, India — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing accusations of spreading hatred against Muslims after controversial comments on Sunday wherein he equated the community to “infiltrators” and peddled anti-Muslim tropes in the middle of the country’s general elections.

Speaking at a crowded rally in the western state of Rajasthan, Modi said if the opposition led by the Congress party came to power, it would distribute the country’s wealth among “those who have more children”, in an apparent reference to Muslims, whom he had spoken about just before.

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“Should your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators?” he said to the cheering crowd, before alleging that the opposition would take away even mangalsutras — the auspicious necklace that a husband ties around his wife’s neck in Hindu weddings — if given a chance.

Local poll officials in Rajasthan confirmed to Al Jazeera that they had received at least two complaints against Modi, calling for his election campaign to be suspended and for his arrest.

Renu Poonia, a nodal officer of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the state capital, Jaipur, revealed that the complaints were received from the Azad Adhikar Sena, a regional political party, and a local non-profit organisation. India’s election code bars parties and politicians from engaging in speeches and campaigns that aim to perpetuate religious or caste differences. But independent watchdogs and activists have long complained that election officials act too slowly, if at all, especially when cases involve powerful officials in the government.

Many leaders in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies in India’s Hindu-majoritarian right have long portrayed the country’s 200 million Muslims effectively as outsiders. Muslim asylum seekers and refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar are in particular targeted as “infiltrators”.

The BJP and its partners have also long pushed a conspiracy theory that suggests that Indian Muslims produce more children intending to eventually outnumber Hindus in the country. In reality, government data shows that the Muslim fertility rate in India is dropping the fastest among all communities and has almost halved in the past three decades.

Modi has himself promoted this stereotype — in 2002, after an anti-Muslim massacre in the state of Gujarat, where he served terms as chief minister — infamously mocking relief camps as baby-producing factories.

Yet, in recent years, while others in his party and its coalition partners have often engaged in open Islamophobic commentary and even violence, Modi has focused on his government’s claimed accomplishments in the fields of the economy and social development. That had been the principal thrust of his 2024 re-election campaign too.

Asim Ali, a political commentator, said Modi’s remarks were “the most inflammatory statement by a sitting prime minister in the recent history of India” and marked a significant shift in his election pitch. India is poised to vote in the second of seven phases of its national election on Friday, April 26. The first phase of voting was held on April 19.

“Five years ago, the question was why is Modi not reigning in extremist voices; now, PM Modi is the most extremist campaigner,” said Ali.

‘Unconscious comment’ or ‘true nature’?

In his speech, Modi said he was referring to the Congress election manifesto, which promises wealth redistribution amid growing concerns over inequality, and to past statements by the opposition party.

“When they [the Congress] were in power, they said Muslims have first right over resources. They will gather all your wealth and distribute it among those who have more children,” Modi said.

In 2006, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress had said India’s traditionally marginalised communities, including castes that had faced historical discrimination and religious minorities, “particularly Muslims”, should have the first claim on the nation’s resources. Singh’s comment had followed a report by a government-appointed panel under a former judge that had found that the social, economic and educational conditions of Indian Muslims were worse than those of any caste or community.

Modi’s comments, some analysts and common Muslims said, could instigate hate-fuelled violence against Muslims — already a problem that has skyrocketed under the current government’s decade-long reign.

“The PM might have said it as a jibe against the Congress, but eventually this will further perpetuate the stereotype of Muslims as a problem, and not an asset for India,” said Zeyad Masroor Khan, journalist and author of City on Fire, a book on an anti-Muslim riot in Aligarh in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The comments might “even promote acts of violence against Muslims”, he said.

Khan said the shift in campaign messaging “exposes the true nature of Modi”.

Sandeep Shastri, the national coordinator of the New Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) research programme Lokniti Network, said he hoped Modi’s comments were a slip — and not a conscious change in campaign strategy. According to CSDS polling, the BJP holds a comfortable 12 percent vote advantage over the principal opposition alliance.

“I do not think that the ground situation warranted any rashness from Modi,” said Shastri, adding that he was personally “disappointed” by the statement. “It could have been an unconscious comment – made in the rush of the moment or excitement of campaign,” Shastri added, referring to Modi’s assertion, after he won the 2019 election, that he would work for all Indians. Against that backdrop, comments like Sunday’s “are best avoided”, he said.

“If the intention is what the speech suggests, it is a matter of huge alarm.”

‘Scared to go to the market’

Ashfaq Hussain, a 35-year-old contractor in Rajasthan, is not waiting for any clarification from Modi or the BJP about Sunday’s comments. He said he has seen enough.

Hussain was sitting with his teenage son when a snippet of Modi’s speech popped up on his smartphone. He scrolled the feed quickly, he said. “Our PM is using language like ‘infiltrators’ for us. I feel ashamed and it is gutting,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rajasthan has witnessed a series of anti-Muslim hate crimes in recent years, including lynchings.

“[Modi’s speech] endangers my family’s safety and further divides our society by erasing the historical brotherhood.”

“I’m scared to even go to the market alone in the evening; people call names and try to instigate, which then can anytime turn into a lynching,” Hussain said.

BJP national spokesperson Zafar Islam said Modi’s comments were being misinterpreted.

“We need to get this in right context. In the past, a lot of people have come from outside and have now mixed in the society and using resources,” he said, suggesting that Modi was referring to foreign nationals illegal in India, and not Indian Muslims, while speaking of “infiltrators”.

Islam claimed that Indian Muslims had benefited from government schemes under Modi and that opposition parties relied on scaremongering to get religious minorities to vote for them.

But the Congress party chief, Mallikarjun Kharge, said Modi’s “hate speech” was “a deliberate ploy to divert attention”.

Ali, the political commentator, agreed. The opposition has been focusing on the need for a caste census — an enumeration of the populations of different castes in India. The Congress claims this would show how disadvantaged castes have been denied adequate affirmative action. “To respond to the opposition, textbook politics say you need a scapegoat; and for the BJP, it has been Muslims,” he said.

The speech was also worrying, Ali said, because of Modi’s attempt to portray Muslims as dangerous to the very identity of Hindus.

“Mangalsutras are considered sacred – it was a deeply psychological attack that gives a sense that Muslims will endanger your private, domestic space,” said Ali.

“This is a very dangerous moment for Indian politics.”

US Supreme Court rejects free speech case over attorney bias rule

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Reporting by David Thomas

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David Thomas reports on the business of law, including law firm strategy, hiring, mergers and litigation. He is based out of Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @DaveThomas5150.

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