Executives also shored up YouTube’s software tools, particularly in response to breaking news incidents. They quietly built software, called a “breaking news shelf” and a “top news shelf,” that is triggered when a major news incident occurs and people are going to YouTube to find information, either by searching for it or by coming across it on the homepage. The breaking news shelf uses signals from Google News and other sources to show content from more authoritative sources, such as mainstream media organizations, sometimes bypassing the content that everyday users upload. Engineers also built a “developing news card,” which pops up on top of the main screen to give people information about a crisis even before they search. More recently, the company said it made changes to its recommendation algorithms, the popular content-suggestion software that is the way most users discover new videos.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 18, 2019 22:18 UTC