In another bid to quell criticism that its platform is overrun with misinformation, YouTube said Friday that it would start labeling news broadcasters' videos that receive at least some government or public funding.
The move comes a year after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailed how Russian state broadcaster RT racked up hundreds of millions of views on YouTube promoting Kremlin propaganda.
YouTube yanked RT from its list of premium channels marketed to advertisers in October amid growing congressional pressure. The Russian broadcaster, which produced a wealth of reports critical of Hillary Clinton and promoted the viewpoints of figures such as Julian Assange, was the first news organization to surpass 1 billion views on YouTube in 2013.
RT, along with other state broadcasters such as PBS and New China TV, will see notices directly below their videos, above even their titles, YouTube said.
Links to the broadcasters' Wikipedia pages will also be included below their videos.
YouTube, which is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., is resistant to legal oversight of its content. But it has made efforts to police its platform after a year in which the company was criticized for surfacing conspiracy theories, hoaxes and inappropriate content directed at children.
Starting last year, the company said it tweaked its algorithm to ensure more established news sources surfaced in search results in the wake of breaking news. The change was made after a slew of conspiracy theories surfaced on YouTube moments after the Las Vegas mass shooting in October.
"News is an important and growing vertical for us and we want to be sure to get it right," wrote Geoff Samek, senior product manager for YouTube News in a blog post Friday.
Google, like Facebook and Twitter, is slowly coming to grips with its role in the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. Forced to testify on Capitol Hill, the tech giants have since pledged to promote more trusted news sources and have disclosed more data on Russian-controlled accounts.
Preventing more attempts by state actors to gain influence on the platforms will be challenging, at best.
"The nature of an open platform means we never know what trends or moments are going to arise next," wrote YouTube's Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki in a blog post Thursday addressing the rash of objectionable material on her platform.
The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan group funded by the German Marshall Fund think tank, shows Russia's influence campaign remains active on social media.
The group says Russian-linked influence networks on Twitter continue to promote hashtags such as #releasethememo, a reference to the House Intelligence Committee's controversial memo on the Russia inquiry disclosed to the public Friday.
