Youtube is one of the best sensations that modern-day youth is obsessed with. People are coming up with all kinds of innovative ideas to attract more and more viewers on their video. However, in this battle of getting a million subscribers and billion views, the only trophy that everyone ultimately desires is getting their videos in the trending section. 
Instead of being the most important part of youtube, it is yet the least understood part. It is because people have very less knowledge about how to get their video listed on the trending section. But don’t worry, we’ve got your back.

People have been trying head to toe, to get their way into the youtube trending list. But only a few are able to make it till there. When you will observe closely, an independent YouTuber needs millions of views on their video to get it listed in the trending tab. When you observe the videos in the trending tab, you will that only the youtube videos having millions of views are trending. However, if you would have observed real closely, it seems that the traditional media channels don’t need to reach the bar of million viewers, as their videos make it to the trending club at only a few hundred thousands views.

If we wish to understand the technicality of this, the videos which have a good chunk of viewership and it seems that the people are supporting it or it is worth watching, then depending upon the number of views, youtube lists the video into the trending tab to let it reach more and more audience globally.

If we try to understand it with an example, Lele Pons, a famous YouTuber has trended on youtube for 10 times now. However, it took her, on an average, 4 million viewers on her every video to get it listed on the trending tab. Hence, if this is the case to be, then YouTubers having millions of views on their youtube videos, shall only get in the list of trending. However, this is not the case. 

The traditional media channels such as ESPN, Netflix, Jimmy The Ellen Show, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, CNN etc which have their video listed in the trending tab, with only a bunch of hundred thousand followers. This is an observation, that might not have come to the mind of various regular visitors. If this is the case, then it seems that youtube is biassed towards traditional media.

Looking at the practical figures, an independent YouTuber Logan Paul had to get 11 million views on his video to get it to the trending tab. However, traditional media channel, ESPN’s video made it to the list with only a 500,000 something views. Isn’t it biassed?

The other people who come into the scene are moderators. A moderator or a moderation team is a group of individuals, working at the backend of the video-sharing platform, and are assigned with the job of filtering and monitoring the content on youtube. They are the people who are responsible for stopping a video to get into the trending tab if it has any problematic content which might offend the audience in any way. The video may be abusive, aggressive, spam, provoking or negative in any manner, thus making it ineligible for the appropriate audience of youtube. However, it seems that the moderators do have a soft corner for the said traditional channels. They have keen observations when it comes to monitoring the content created by independent YouTubers. However, they choose to overlook the flaws that form part of videos of traditional media. You can see many practical examples of the same on Youtube.

Looking on to the global data, the local independent YouTubers from united states were having a very less chance of getting their videos into the trending tab, as compared to Mexico, Canada etc where it is not that big a deal as it is in the USA. This is because the content moderation team for the US is much stronger and competent than any other team around the world. Thus, the content that gets into the trending tab in the US is a lot filtered and is screened precisely. This, as a result, has given traditional media a whole lot of stage to list their video in the trending tab.

This has brought up a whole lot of criticism for youtube from around the globe. People have been trying hard to make their channel a success on youtube. However, youtube’s moderator policy has been a hurdle in the way. To address the issue, CEO of Youtube Susan Wojcicki has assured that they will try to make things work differently. They said that they will tweak the trending tab to work differently, where 50% of the trending videos will come directly from the native/ local YouTubers/ content creators. Even though there has not been any notable improvement in this regard up till now, it has been clear from their statement that still the rest 50% of the content on trending tab, will be from traditional media only.

People from around the world are quitting their jobs and careers and trying to pursue youtube content creating as their living profession. However, it seems that youtube has a moderator’s policy that is biassed for traditional media houses and is less concerned with the hard-working independent YouTubers who make up 80% of the content of youtube.