ISLAMABAD               -             YouTube and Amazon have followed Netflix in slashing video stream quality across the Europe to stop the internet collapsing under increased usage due to COVID-19.

The coronavirus pandemic has seen large swathes of the population confined to working from home and demands on the internet increasing correspondingly. Videos account for a substantial part of internet data traffic. The move by the three platforms follows the recommendation of EU industry chief Thierry Breton that streaming services to temporarily lower their video quality. Mr. Breton reported spoke to both YouTube owner Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. YouTube said that so far it had only seen a few usage peaks — with usage instead being over longer hours than normal but had decided to act nevertheless in order to minimize stress on the system.