Facebook is asking users to skip YouTube and upload videos directly

Facebook is now encouraging users to upload their videos directly to the social network rather than uploading them to YouTube and posting a link. The company has been aggressively expanding its share of the video-sharing market these past few months and this most recent move is probably Facebook’s most direct attack against YouTube. Trying to post a link to a YouTube video now brings up a warning that suggests uploading the video to Facebook instead. 

Facebook is very keen to be a serious alternative to YouTube. Over the last year it’s grown views to over 4 billion per day, launched a revenue sharing scheme for creators and started autoplaying videos in your Newsfeed. A few tweaks we’ve noticed quietly being tested show just how eager Facebook is to stop you going to YouTube for video. When you try to paste a YouTube link onto a page, you’ll see a tiny warning below the share box encouraging you to upload to Facebook instead. It teases higher impressions and the ability to track videos as a reason to do so. The social network also rolled out a major upgrade to its video uploader yesterday that shows just how serious it is about becoming a major video player. It now offers options for disabling embedding, adding categories and sharing as an ‘unlisted’ video — just like YouTube.