Yesterday, Marissa from the YouTube community team posted in the YouTube Help forums an "update on trending" at YouTube. She said that "we've heard questions from some of you about Trending and there are several clarifications we would like to make."
She made four points but offered no new details on what may have changed. She wrote:
- We treat all channels equally and do not favor any specific creators. We do not accept payment for placement on Trending.
- The trending tab helps you quickly see trending videos on YouTube in your region.
- The videos and order of videos shown are driven by many factors, including the rate that views are growing as well as the source of the views.
- More information can be found in our Help Center.
You can access the trending YouTube videos there, and you will see that many are product announcement, movie trailers and potentially ads. That is where this is all stemming from. Some folks are offering ideas on how to clean that up in the thread.
Forum discussion at YouTube Help.