A larger and larger percentage of people are staying home to help slow the spread of coronavirus. And what are they supposed to do with all that free time? They’re watching stuff. Lots of stuff. Too much stuff, in some areas.

As reported by Reuters, YouTube’s parent company Alphabet has announced they are reducing the online video hub’s automatic streaming quality across the European Union “to avoid straining the internet” during the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement to Reuters, YouTube said:

We are making a commitment to temporarily switch all traffic in the EU to standard definition by default.

This follows a similar move by Netflix, who was publicly asked on Twitter by the EU’s Thierry Breton to switch to standard definition across their streaming platforms in order to preserve important internet bandwidth for everyone. Netflix told CNN it “already adjusts the quality of streams to available network capacity, and uses a special delivery network that keeps its library closer to users as a way of consuming less bandwidth.”

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It’s more an important than ever right now that everyone can access the internet, for important news and entertainment. So go standard, stay standard, and stay safe.

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