One of the better features on Facebook is the ability to control who exactly can see your posts, and now the social network is extending that feature to video creators and even expanding on it a bit. As the company continues to transform itself into the first real YouTube competitor, it’s giving video creators the option to control their audience based on age and gender that help give Facebook the edge it needs to take on Google’s video-sharing behemoth.
As Facebook takes aim at YouTube with a growing video platform, the social network is giving advertisers and publishers more say in who sees their videos. The company said Tuesday that video creators will now be able to restrict their audience by age and gender, in addition to the location and language options it already offered. It’s also rolling out a new “secret” mode, which makes videos playable only to those with a direct link, much like YouTube’s “unlisted” function. Video publishers can now opt to turn off third-party embedding, or house videos only under a “videos” tab separate from the News Feed. The company’s video business has exploded in the past year, quadrupling its traffic. In total, Facebook videos accrue more than 4 billion views a day — though it’s important to note that Facebook counts one view if you watch three seconds of a video, which is a much more lenient standard than YouTube’s roughly 30 seconds. Facebook is trying to squeeze more money out of those videos by launching new types of ads. It also wants to give advertisers targeting options that other video platforms can’t offer.