عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Technology

YouTube Exec Says Goal Was Viewer Value Not Addiction 

Cristos Goodrow, vice president of engineering at YouTube, arrives outside the court to take the stand at trial in a key test case accusing Meta and Google's YouTube of harming kids' mental health through addictive platforms, in Los Angeles, California, US, February 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Cristos Goodrow, vice president of engineering at YouTube, arrives outside the court to take the stand at trial in a key test case accusing Meta and Google's YouTube of harming kids' mental health through addictive platforms, in Los Angeles, California, US, February 23, 2026. (Reuters)
TT
TT

YouTube Exec Says Goal Was Viewer Value Not Addiction 

Cristos Goodrow, vice president of engineering at YouTube, arrives outside the court to take the stand at trial in a key test case accusing Meta and Google's YouTube of harming kids' mental health through addictive platforms, in Los Angeles, California, US, February 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Cristos Goodrow, vice president of engineering at YouTube, arrives outside the court to take the stand at trial in a key test case accusing Meta and Google's YouTube of harming kids' mental health through addictive platforms, in Los Angeles, California, US, February 23, 2026. (Reuters)

A landmark social media addiction trial resumed Monday with a YouTube executive insisting that the Google-owned company's aim was to give people value, not hook them on harmful binge-viewing.

YouTube vice president of engineering Cristos Goodrow was pressed to defend the company's self-styled "big, hairy, audacious goal," set more than a decade ago, to increase viewer time to more than a billion hours a day by 2016.

As he did last week when Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg testified in the same Los Angeles court, plaintiff's attorney Mark Lanier told jurors that Goodrow's compensation climbed with his company's share price, meaning he profited personally from ramping up user engagement.

"YouTube is not designed to maximize time," Goodrow replied, as he was shown company documents indicating that viewer engagement was a priority for performance at the platform.

"It's designed to give people the most value..."

As a counterpoint, Lanier had Goodrow detail the addition of features including viewing recommendations, auto-play for videos and ads, and a version of YouTube designed specifically for children.

The lawyer said these efforts enticed users to a "treadmill of continuous checking" for new content.

Goodrow contended "we don't want anybody to be addicted to anything" as Lanier pressed him about YouTube features crafted to keep viewers watching.

The executive pushed back against efforts by Lanier to put YouTube on par with social networks such as Facebook or Snapchat, stressing the platform was not a forum for friends to connect or for sharing vanishing messages.

And YouTube would see relentless scrolling by users as a failure, not a success, according to Goodrow.

"We want people to be able to watch what they want to watch as quickly as possible every time," Goodrow told jurors.

"If they scroll, they'll get kind of frustrated."

Lots of scrolling would also mean YouTube's vaunted recommendation software was not doing its job well, he added.

Lanier pointed to internal YouTube documents referencing outside research that found harmful effects from spending too much time watching videos.

Goodrow agreed that children should not be losing sleep watching YouTube, saying that is why the platform came up with features like view timers and prompts to take breaks.

- Kaley to testify -

The trial is set to last until late March, when the jury will decide whether Meta and YouTube bear responsibility for the mental health problems suffered by Kaley G.M., a 20-year-old California resident who has been a heavy social media user since childhood.

Kaley G.M. started using YouTube at age six, Instagram at nine, and later TikTok and Snapchat.

She is expected to testify this week - perhaps as early as Tuesday, according to her lawyers.

Zuckerberg testified last week that he regretted Meta's slow progress in identifying underage users on Instagram, as the plaintiff's legal team sharply criticized the company for deliberately targeting children.

The trial is the first in a series of lawsuits filed by American families against social media platforms and will determine whether Google and Meta deliberately designed their platforms to encourage compulsive use among young people.

The case is expected to set a standard for resolving thousands of lawsuits that blame social media for fueling an epidemic of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide.

TikTok and Snapchat, also named in the complaint, reached settlements with the plaintiff before the trial began.

Most Viewed

 
 
Technology

China Bets on AI to Promote President Xi Jinping's Thinking

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)
TT
TT

China Bets on AI to Promote President Xi Jinping's Thinking

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)

Xinhuanet, owned by China's official Xinhua news agency, plans to invest over 1.1 billion yuan ($162.38 million) on an "authoritative" AI agent to help promote President Xi Jinping's thinking, Shanghai Stock Exchange filings showed.

The project, known as "Xinhua Yudian," meaning Xinhua lexicon, is "an intelligent agent for learning, researching, and disseminating Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era," the company said.

Driven by mainstream values and dedicated to "spreading the positive voice," the agentic AI will also provide users ⁠with current affairs and ⁠political news content to help them deal with information overload and "a dilemma of trust in distinguishing truth from falsehood.”

China in March launched a sweeping "AI+" blueprint to encourage the adoption of artificial intelligence across all sectors of the economy. It also ⁠follows previous tech-driven efforts to broaden the reach of official state ideology among an online-savvy younger generation.

In 2019, China rolled out a hit propaganda app known as "Xuexi Qiangguo," which literally translates as "Study to make China strong." At one point after its launch, it overtook WeChat and the Chinese version of TikTok to become the most popular app on Apple's China app store.

Xinhua's proposed agentic AI will ⁠present the ⁠essence of Xi's discourses to its users, who can rely on the tool as a politically sensitive citation checker, ensuring references to Xi's words "in official document writing and policy interpretation are accurate and error-free."

To be built on the state-run news agency's "pure and clean" corpus library, the AI will help deliver the party's voice to all sectors of Chinese society, lending further support to "consolidating the ideological and public opinion foundation," the company said.

Technology

Anthropic Calls for Pause of Global AI Development

FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
TT
TT

Anthropic Calls for Pause of Global AI Development

FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic suggested Thursday a global pause on building the most powerful AI systems as the latest models are beginning to show signs they could escape human control.

The San Francisco-based company, which makes the Claude family of AI models, said in a report that a worldwide slowdown in cutting-edge AI development would "likely be a good thing" -- but warned that if only one company stopped, rivals would simply race ahead.

"We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology," AFP quoted it as saying.

Getting a real pause to work would mean multiple major AI companies in multiple countries -- most notably the United States and China -- all agreeing to stop at the same time, under rules everyone could actually verify, Anthropic said.

That idea may prove somewhat unpopular with the likes of Elon Musk, as the hotly anticipated stock market debut of his SpaceX company -- which owns his artificial intelligence venture xAI -- is expected to make him the world's first trillionaire.

"Without a global coordination mechanism, companies and governments will have to make difficult decisions about safety while under competitive and geopolitical pressures," Anthropic said.

The company has faced pushback from others in the industry -- and officials in the White House -- who say its focus on worst-case scenarios overstates the risks and amounts to a strategy for slowing rivals under the cover of safety concerns.

Still, the White House has acknowledged the power of the company's Mythos model -- which has not been made available to the general public due to its cybersecurity capabilities and is currently deployed only to a small number of vetted organizations.

The proposal would face an uphill battle in Washington and Silicon Valley, where US officials and tech executives have repeatedly argued that any slowdown in AI development risks handing China a decisive strategic edge in what many see as the defining technology race of the century.

US President Donald Trump, however, said he discussed the possibility of cooperating with China on AI safety issues during his recent visit to Beijing.

Trump also signed an executive order this week that allows the government 30 days to conduct a preliminary review of the most powerful US AI models before their release.

Anthropic compared the problem to nuclear arms control treaties, but said it would be even harder to get a handle on since AI training is far easier to hide than a missile silo, and the temptation to quietly keep going would be enormous.

"You want the option to be able to take your foot off the gas and put your foot on the brake," Anthropic's co-founder Jack Clark told Britain's BBC Newsnight on Thursday.

"Right now, it's like the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn't have a brake pedal."

The company said it plans to bring together government officials, scientists, advocacy groups and competing AI firms in coming months to figure out how such a system could work.

The call for coordination comes alongside internal data showing that AI is already dramatically speeding up the development of AI itself, Anthropic said.

That acceleration creates a feedback loop that Anthropic warned could eventually lead to what researchers call "recursive self-improvement."

That's the idea of an AI system that becomes capable of essentially teaching itself to get smarter, without much human help.

"We are not there yet, and recursive self-improvement is not inevitable," the Anthropic report said, while adding that it could arrive sooner than most governments and institutions are ready for.

"The evidence suggests that the human role is narrowing at each step in the AI development process," the company said.

Technology

Crypto Scammers Prey on French Victims from Albania

This image taken from a handout video released by Albanian police shows operators in an alleged cryptocurrency scam call center in Tirana in April 2026. Handout / ALBANIA POLICE/AFP
This image taken from a handout video released by Albanian police shows operators in an alleged cryptocurrency scam call center in Tirana in April 2026. Handout / ALBANIA POLICE/AFP
TT
TT

Crypto Scammers Prey on French Victims from Albania

This image taken from a handout video released by Albanian police shows operators in an alleged cryptocurrency scam call center in Tirana in April 2026. Handout / ALBANIA POLICE/AFP
This image taken from a handout video released by Albanian police shows operators in an alleged cryptocurrency scam call center in Tirana in April 2026. Handout / ALBANIA POLICE/AFP

Despite facing up to 10 years in jail on fraud charges for allegedly luring people into putting their savings into an Albania-based cryptocurrency investment scam, Jon shows zero remorse.

"I don't see why I should have any qualms if people fall for it," he told AFP in an interview in a Tirana cafe.

The Albanian capital has become a favored location for scam call centers to set up in recent years, according to former policeman Fatjon Softa, thanks to the city's multilingual population, low wages and possibilities to launder funds.

Jon, whose name has been changed to preserve his anonymity, said he modelled himself on Jordan Belfort, the stockbroker who cheats his way to the top, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2013 film "The Wolf of Wall Street".

In a luxury office building in the center of Tirana, Jon would pass himself off as an American as he contacted potential victims he said others had already identified.

"My job was to lure them in and convince them to invest," said Jon, adding that he sometimes felt "proud" of the job he did.

The job earned the twenty-something Albanian 1,450 euros (a little under $1,700) per month before performance bonuses, compared to the country's minimum wage of 500 euros before taxes.

Jon called it an "excellent opportunity, very well paid".

But after six months in the job he is now required to check in with the court every week until he is tried on fraud charges that carry a jail term of three to 10 years.

- French victims -

At the end of April several Albanian scam centers were dismantled, including the one Jon worked in, following an investigation by police in the southwestern French city of Pau.

French investigators had been seeking to track down the scammers since a complaint in 2023 by an investor who lost 30,000 euros investing on a platform called universatrade.io.

They eventually identified 19 French victims who had lost around 1.5 million euros in the scams.

One of those victims, a businesswoman based in the south of France, said her misfortune began by clicking on an ad about investing in oil.

"Ten minutes later I received a call," said Chantal, whose name has also been changed to protect her anonymity.

"My daughter was getting married, I told myself I could make a little bit extra," she added.

Initially Chantal only invested 250 euros, but after seeing her money quickly quadruple she succumbed when advisors asked if she wanted to invest more money. Soon she was in for 80,000 euros.

Chantal said she researched the investment platforms and found them on the internet, with profiles of their advisors on LinkedIn. One even sent a copy of his identity card.

- Ready to 'blow her brains out' -

In December of last year, three months after her initial investment, Chantal had 300,000 euros of gains in her app account and she tried to withdraw the equivalent of 30,000 euros in cryptocurrency.

"That's when everything went down the drain," she said.

Even though she realized there was a problem the scammers had such a tight grip on her -- calling 15 to 20 times per day -- that they persuaded her to continue investing with promises that additional funds would unlock withdrawals.

"They've got you. What can you do? They have your money," said Chantal.

"You don't sleep all night, your brain just can't cope. And the next day, they tell you: 'By noon there has to be this amount, otherwise you won't get your money back,'" she added.

"So you pay the amount. An hour later, they say it'll be in your account. But it's not there. And you cry, you scream your head off."

A lawyer helped Chantal recover part of the money, which she then lost again.

Chantal said finally she "wanted to blow her brains out", but her family saved her from going through with it.

"People say that victims are gullible, but the scams are put together well", they are very "sophisticated", said a source close to the investigation.

- 'They steal your dignity' -

French investigators were eventually able to track the scammers to Albania, and a police raid recovered a computer hard drive with the names and contact information of the French victims.

Five Albanian nationals were arrested, including the suspected mastermind and owner of the call center, who was remanded into custody pending trial.

As Albania does not extradite its citizens, French prosecutors plan to drop their case in favor of their Albanian colleagues, who have promised to seek compensation for French victims.

Chantal wants to testify so others avoid her misfortune.

"They steal more than your money. They steal your dignity," she said.