U. S. Users’ Exposure to YouTube Videos On- and Off-platform

YouTube is one of the most important platforms on the Internet. However, it is not just a singular destination: because YouTube videos may be embedded into any website, it is a systemically important platform for the entire web. Unfortunately, existing studies do not examine playable YouTube videos embedded around the web, instead focusing solely on on-platform engagement. In this study we present the first comparison of on- and off-platform playable YouTube video exposure on the desktop web, based on data from a sample of n = 1133 U. S. residents from three cohorts: demographically representative users, heavy YouTube users, and users with high racial resentment. Our dataset includes the URLs of all playable YouTube videos encountered by participants for six months—on YouTube itself or embedded in another website—and the URLs where the videos were encountered. By analyzing this data, we find that less popular websites tend to embed YouTube videos in a disproportionately large percentage of their webpages and that individuals encounter more YouTube videos off-platform than on-platform. We also observe that most YouTube channels only receive exposure from either on- or off-platform sources, and that only-off-platform channels tend to get more exposure than only-on-platform ones. These results underscore the wide reach of YouTube as a service provider for the web and the limitations of studies focusing solely on on-platform activity. Motivated by concerns about online misinformation and hate speech, we also examine how partisan websites embed playable YouTube videos and where videos from problematic channels appear around the web. We find that politically right-leaning websites tend to embed more videos from problematic YouTube channels than centrist or left-leaning websites, and that participants exposed to off-platform videos from problematic channels are significantly more inclined to browse towards on-platform videos from problematic channels.