MrBeast, YouTube’s top creator with 378 million subscribers, recently crashed an interview with Mark Zuckerberg to tell the Meta CEO what he’d change if he were CEO of the company instead — and Zuckerberg promised to make it happen in less than a year.
In an episode of the podcast “Colin and Samir” that aired earlier this week, Zuckerberg, 40, sat down with hosts Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry to discuss topics like Facebook’s decision to bring the Friends tab to the platform, which will only show content from Facebook friends, not recommended posts, for users in North America.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, joined the conversation in the middle of the episode. In response to a question asking what he would change if he were CEO of Meta, Donaldson said his highest priority would be allowing Facebook Video to play audio tracks in different languages to accompany his videos.
“If I was CEO, that’s one of the first things I’d fast-track,” the 26-year-old said.
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On YouTube, Donaldson can upload different audio tracks in various languages that automatically play with the video according to the region of the world the user is in. For example, if a viewer clicks on a MrBeast YouTube video from Mexico, the audio is automatically dubbed in Spanish. The same feature isn’t available on Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Zuckerberg accepted the feedback, calling the idea of bringing dubbing to Facebook “a good one.” He stated that “within a year,” Facebook would have the feature.
Zuckerberg also told Donaldson that AI could one day help with auto-dubbing videos in every language.
Donaldson said that he was already experimenting with using AI to dub his voice in other languages and that his retention rate was 1% higher with AI dubs instead of a voice actor because the AI-generated voice sounded more like his.
“Ideally, in a year, I just post a video on Facebook, check a box, then AI dubs it into 20 languages,” Donaldson said.
Jimmy Donaldson. Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images
Donaldson noted that the dubbing feature extends his reach and ability to connect with his audience, especially since the YouTube star estimates that 70% of his audience doesn’t speak English. Donaldson says that he brings in tens of millions of views on YouTube from people watching his videos in Spanish and Portuguese.
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“What’s brutal is that when I post those same videos on Facebook or any of your platforms, I can’t import the dubs over, so my viewership is just always infinitely lower,” Donaldson told Zuckerberg on the podcast, stating that “if you’re not dubbed, you can’t reach the majority of the world.”
The top three countries with the highest number of people on Facebook are India (378 million), the U.S. (193 million), and Indonesia (119 million).
Because Meta doesn’t allow dubbing, Donaldson’s top-viewed videos with the highest reach on Facebook and Instagram do not show him speaking. His most-watched video on Instagram, he said, with over 250 million views, is him running with progressively more bundles of cash strapped on his body — and he doesn’t say a word.
Still, in the interview, Donaldson also applauded Facebook Video, stating that it had the most users out of any platform and presented the biggest opportunity to connect to a wide audience.
According to Sprout Social, Facebook has more than 3 billion monthly active users, the most of any platform. Instagram and TikTok are next with two billion monthly active users each.
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