YouTube

We’re very excited to announce that Decoder is now officially on YouTube. So if you prefer to watch and not just listen to your podcasts, you can head over to youtube.com/@decoderpod and subscribe to our new channel, where we’ll post new full-length interviews every Monday.

After about an hour or so of reports from around the world of problems with YouTube, the video streaming platform is back online, and a support forum post confirms the issue is now resolved.

California is banning streaming ads that are louder than the content around them, bringing streamers in line with broadcast TV. But as some ask whether Big Government has gone too far this time, we say: No, obviously not!

The airline now offers a selection of ad-free YouTube videos, podcasts, and music playlists in case you forget to download a movie on your phone. That includes content from some of the platform’s most popular creators, including MrBeast, Nick DiGiovanni, Kinigra Deon, Michelle Khare, and others.

MrBeast is the face of the content creator industry; he’s the exception, not the rule, going from being a guy online to a household name. His business is also increasingly not in YouTube videos but in chocolate bars, snack boxes, and more.

I’ve long wanted a way to quickly switch between watching, listening to, and reading a YouTube video, depending on how I want to consume it. Turns out, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg wants the same thing:

The feature will expand to “millions of creators over the coming weeks,” YouTube says.

Nearly one year after announcing its new “Hype” button, YouTube is rolling it out to 39 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and others. The feature is meant to help highlight smaller creators by letting fans “hype” videos that will then appear on a dedicated leaderboard.

As reported by the BBC and Rhett Shull, some creators have noticed their YouTube Shorts videos look... enhanced, possibly by AI.

Yes, Paramount just trolled everyone waiting for its Mission Impossible livestream and links you to purchase the movie online instead.

Maybe not anytime soon.

The platform announced earlier this month that it will begin to use AI to detect users under 18 and automatically apply restrictions to their account. If it incorrectly identifies someone as underage, YouTube will ask for the user’s government ID, credit card, or a selfie to verify their age.

That was EV accessory manufacturer Hansshow’s offer to YouTuber Branden Flasch, after he posted a pretty damning takedown of their “Dangerous, useless and overpriced” charging adapter.

The full report, which you can find here, shows that Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) terminated almost 11,000 channels between April and June of 2025 as part of an investigation into “coordinated influence operation campaigns.”

We’ve talked before about the funhouse-mirror-alternative-reality that Trump (and Musk) have built. JP Brammer, who watches much more YouTube than I do, notes something weird is going on in content land — it seems Donald Trump has lost control of the plot. NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny, writing from a more anxious angle, seems to agree. Content has now outpaced reality. I guess we’re going to find out by how much.

As of July 22nd, teens will have to be at least 16 years old to live stream on the platform, according to a support post. If a teen 13-15 years old wants to appear in a live stream, they’ll have to have to be “visibly accompanied” by an adult.