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YouTube CEO: Splitting from Google wouldn't do consumers any good

Separating the video giant from Google and Alphabet wouldn't "have any benefit for consumers," Susan Wojcicki said.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
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Joan E. Solsman
US-POLITICS-ATLANTIC FESTIVAL

Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, spoke at the Atlantic Festival Wednesday. 

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YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki rejected calls to spin off YouTube, Google's massive online video service, from the search giant and its parent company, Alphabet. 

"We use technology from Google that's really helpful, like all the machine learning ... to find the violative content. Being able to do that at scale, we benefit from the Google technology," she said Wednesday at the Atlantic Festival. "I don't think it would have any benefit for consumers if we were spun out."

The comments go further than her previous statements about a potential split, when Wojcicki said that she didn't know how YouTube would deal with such a development and that she was focused on immediate concerns for YouTube

YouTube, which has 2 billion monthly users, is one of the tech giants under scrutiny as political candidates and regulators call for a breakup of "big tech" and elected officials investigate Google for antitrust concerns

Watch this: Should the government break up big tech? (The Daily Charge 7/16/2019)