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The tiny tweak that could change YouTube forever

YouTube is testing what happens if it just goes full TikTok.

“We’re running an experiment with a small group of Android users that allow them to swipe up to discover more videos when watching in either portrait or fullscreen landscape mode,” YouTube spokesperson Allison Toh said in a statement. YouTube is trying hard to juice discovery, to make it easier for people to find new and interesting stuff to watch — and to help new creators grow their audiences on a crowded platform — which already has led to new features like Hype and TV-centric things like seasons. Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast himself, the most popular name on YouTube and the person you’d think would least need to game the algorithms, once called his obsession with thumbnails “an addiction” and said his team makes hundreds of options for each video.

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