Netflix is reducing its streaming quality in Europe to avoid straining the internet during COVID-19

Netflix has announced it will reduce streaming rates in Europe amid the coronavirus outbreak.

EU Commissioner Thierry Breton on Wednesday tweeted that he'd spoken with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and asked Netflix to stop showing video in high definition in order to "secure Internet access for all."

On Thursday afternoon, Netflix announced a changed to its platform in Europe.

"Following the discussions between Commissioner Thierry Breton and Reed Hastings — and given the extraordinary challenges raised by the coronavirus — Netflix has decided to begin reducing bit rates across all our streams in Europe for 30 days," a Netflix spokesperson told Business Insider in an email. "We estimate that this will reduce Netflix traffic on European networks by around 25 percent while also ensuring a good quality service for our members."

As the coronavirus continues to spread worldwide, people are increasingly turning to solutions like video calls and streaming to stay connected or entertained. It's not clear yet how networks, particularly home networks and the internet service providers that power them, will be able to handle the increase in people working from home or students taking classes virtually.

For example, Akamai, a major cloud and cybersecurity provider, has already seen an increase in daily traffic of more that 50%, but appears to be holding up just fine. Akamai said its services are running normally. Companies like AT&T have also said they're prepared for times like this.

But video, which accounts for about 70% of network traffic, puts the biggest strain on the internet. Netflix videos in standard definition, for example, use 1 GB of data per hour, while HD videos use 3 GB of data per hour.

While Netflix automatically adjusts your stream quality based on your internet capacity, users who might be looking to use less data can also control the setting on their own. Once you're logged into your Netflix account, click on your profile icon in the upper-right corner, then select "Account," scroll down to "My Profile," and click "Playback settings." You can then select the quality of your video and Netflix will let you know how much data your videos will use.