Accordingly, starting from March 31, each time a Shorts video is played or re-played will be counted as one view, regardless of how long the viewer stops on the video.
This change is expected to help content creators record higher viewership than before. Previously, YouTube required users to watch for at least a certain period of time to be counted as a valid view.
However, YouTube affirmed that it will continue to maintain the statistics of interactive views - those for which videos are played over a certain period of time.
This is the new index used to evaluate creators' income as well as their ability to participate in the YouTube Partner Program. Adjusting the usual review method will not affect income or partner approval criteria.
Both TikTok and Instagram are also currently calculating views based on the number of times the video starts playing, but at the same time providing additional metrics related to the time users follow the content.
In the context that all three platforms have more than 1 billion monthly users, unification in the way of counting views will make it easier for creators to compare and evaluate the level of content access on each platform.
YouTube Shorts is a short video feature of the YouTube platform, allowing users to create and share vertical videos. This is a YouTube product to compete directly with TikTok and Instagram Reels - two platforms that are very popular with short video content.
