“If you see a video of Mark Carney telling you to buy Bitcoin, that is coming down”: Meet Nicole Bell, the new head of YouTube Canada

If you still think of YouTube as a destination for grainy videos of cats riding skateboards, welcome back from the coma. The once-scrappy streaming service is now the definitive victor in the streaming wars, beating out Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney Plus for its ability to attract Canadian eyeballs. A new partnership between YouTube and the FIFA World Cup means creator-driven soccer content is about to take over your algorithm. Below, Nicole Bell, the newly appointed head of YouTube Canada, explains how we got here.

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YouTube is the biggest streaming service in the world, with more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, absolutely crushing Netflix and Disney for views. Are you the new TV?  That’s how Variety described us last year, and I think it’s fair. We know that we’re the most popular: 98 per cent of Canadian adults watch YouTube every month, whether they are tuning in for entertainment or learning how to fix a leaky faucet. We are also the number-one source for podcasting content. One of the biggest recent shifts is not just who’s watching but how: more people are watching YouTube on their television sets as opposed to on their laptops and phones. Now we see families and friends gathering around. So we’ve invested a ton in the app for your physical TV—our living room app, as we call it.

Sounds like we’re way past cat videos. We are. Funny viral videos were responsible for a lot of our views in the early days, and they’re still all over the platform. But we’ve moved on to larger things. The shift comes down to YouTube’s model of sharing revenue with creators. It helped birth the creator economy and the idea that content creation could be an actual job, not just a hobby. We’ve seen a lot of examples of independent horror films, documentaries. And then a lot of creators start shows that reinvent traditional TV formats. Chicken Shop Date and Hot Ones are new versions of the old talk show.

Those are British and American shows. What about Canadian talent? Canadian creators have played a huge role too. Alexandra Gater, for example, works in DIY, which is like HGTV content. Her home decor and design channel has almost a million subscribers. Then there’s children’s programming, which has seen huge growth. Super Simple Songs is run by Skyship Entertainment, which is based in Liberty Village. They have an unbelievable studio with puppeteers, actors and animators all working on digital-first videos—to the tune of more than 60 billion total views. It’s a powerhouse that rivals Sesame Street.

Speaking of kids, as the parent of a four-year-old, I’m constantly hearing from other parents to keep her off YouTube. What do you say to that? If your four-year-old is watching YouTube, I hope they’re doing that on YouTube Kids, which facilitates a lot of different parental control options. We take the feedback we get from parents very seriously. We recently introduced our shorts timer, which is mostly for older kids and teens. Parents can set how many minutes their kids spend scrolling through shorts. You can set it to 10 minutes or you can set it to zero.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos recently acknowledged YouTube as a “major TV competitor.” Is that how you see it? We’re talking about two very different business models. Netflix commissions, curates and selects content, whereas YouTube provides the stage for independent creators. It’s true that we compete with Netflix and all of the streamers for people’s attention. Are you going to spend your evening watching Squid Game on Netflix or Royal Court on YouTube? But we are also in a partnership with Netflix. You might come to YouTube to watch clips from one of their comedy specials and then switch platforms to watch the whole thing.

Okay, but long term: Are you coming for their lunch in terms of more scripted programming? I think we have a lot of data to show that viewers, and especially younger viewers, find creator-driven content as compelling as traditional programming.

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You started at YouTube 10 years ago as the head of communications. What did you learn in those early days?  The big thing back then was live shows. YouTube had hosted fan fests in Asia, where their biggest events drew about 4,500 people. When we hosted Canada’s first-ever fan fest with Lilly Singh, in 2015 at what was then Yonge-Dundas Square, 15,000 people showed up. I wanted to prove that Canada was a legitimate market with that event, and I think we were successful. The city had to shut down Dundas because the streetcars couldn’t move. Lilly had become a new breed of celebrity, and audiences were no longer questioning whether “content creator” was a real job. YouTube’s channels are to the entertainment industry as start-ups are to the tech scene. Some channels, like Miss Rachel, even go on to become media empires and get nominated for Emmys.

Who is the Lilly Singh of 2026?  I would say that Canada, in particular, is having a moment with comedy. Creators like Laura Ramoso and Julie Nolke are based in Toronto and poised for superstardom. One of my key objectives is to help these incredibly talented artists boost their profiles, and I think that has a lot to do with how we position YouTubers. A couple of years ago, Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, wrote an op-ed in the Hollywood Reporter arguing that it was time for a creator to win an Emmy. Flash forward to this month’s Canadian Screen Awards, and for the first time, there’s a best creator award. That feels like an important step forward.

You have talked about the importance of responsible AI adoption. What does that look like on YouTube? We want AI to serve creative people, not to replace them—so that a horror director can make visual effects they could never have afforded to before, so that creators can use new software to edit videos faster.

YouTube recently launched a deepfake-detection tool. How does that work? It’s something we’re offering for creatives in our partner program. You submit a selfie, and we go out and find any content that is deepfaking you. Then we’ll take it down if you want. We understand that not having control of your likeness and your voice is risky to your business and reputation.

Why would a creator not want you to take it down? There are cases when deepfakes are used in comedy and satire. There was a guy making fake Tom Cruise content, for instance, so it’s up to the individual being faked to make the call. Scammy deepfakes, though, are against our policy regardless. If there’s a video of Prime Minister Mark Carney telling you to buy Bitcoin, that is coming down. We have stepped up in the absence of legislation and clear direction from governments.

Do I detect some government-directed shade? In your opinion, what kind of law should the federal government enact to counter these frauds? We’ve endorsed a bill that has come out of the US Senate called the No Fakes Act, which is extending the existing protections of voice and likeness to the world of AI, so that it protects the visual likeness of everybody, whether you’re alive or deceased, from unauthorized computer-generated recreation.

Along with comedy and horror, hate and disinformation are thriving on YouTube. Yet, last June, the company loosened its moderation rules in the service of free speech. Was that a Trump-era concession? No. We continue to monitor content based on educational, documentary, scientific or artistic value. You can’t just post a clip from Hitler’s Nuremberg speeches, but it if it’s part of a documentary on the Second World War, that changes the context of the message. If a creator is spewing vaccine misinformation but also running for office, we allow their video on the platform because we believe that it is in the public interest for voters to be aware of that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.