Were the US moon landings faked? Did director Stanley Kubrick rig the astronauts up with theatrical wires in a movie studio and bounce them up and down to simulate low gravity?
We’re not going there. We’re not going to the moon, and we’re not going to try to talk anybody out of their belief that visual flashes in videos betray the wires. But YouTube is – at least, it’s getting ready to put a bit more context around such content.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that YouTube – a unit of Google’s Alphabet – is planning to slap excerpts from Wikipedia and other websites onto pages containing videos about hoaxes and conspiracy theories, such as the ones relating to moon landings.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki delivered the news at the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday. She displayed a mock-up of the new feature, which will be called information cues.
Wojcicki said that the videos slated to get this treatment won’t go away. They’ll just be accompanied by additional sources:
People can still watch the videos but then they actually have access to additional information, can click off and go and see that.
The information cues won’t appear on all controversial videos. Engadget reports that at least at first, the cues – including a text box linking to a third-party source such as Wikipedia – will only appear around videos regarding conspiracies that have “significant debate.”
Here’s a statement sent out by a YouTube spokesperson:
We’re always exploring new ways to battle misinformation on YouTube. At SXSW, we announced plans to show additional information cues, including a text box linking to third-party sources around widely accepted events, like the moon landing. These features will be rolling out in the coming months, but beyond that we don’t have any additional information to share at this time.
This is only one approach out of many that major content platforms such as Google and Facebook have presented, all in response to lawmakers and media advocacy groups asking for their help to battle hoaxes and fake news.
Google did something similar in April, putting Fact Check tags, gleaned from a fact-checking community of 115 organizations, on some of its search and news results in order to add additional information.
Both Facebook and Google have tried pushing down potentially fake content in their news rankings. Facebook has also tried sticking disputed flags onto what some of us call fake news and what others call the stories that mainstream news outlets with hidden agendas want to suffocate. It subsequently mothballed the tags after admitting they hadn’t done squat to stop the spread of fake news.
As Engadget points out, YouTube not only hosts and displays videos that push extreme conspiracies. Its algorithm also suggests related videos and thereby can push the craziest content to the top of rankings, furthering its spread and giving creators incentive to churn out similar content.
A case in point was a video that accused Parkland High School shooting survivors of having been coached to play the part of “crisis actors” – a video that top-trended last month.
Will the information cues lessen such algorithm-boosted dissemination? It would be nice to think so, but a similar approach didn’t work very well for Facebook. Recent research has shown that people relish fake news. It’s so much more colorful than the plain old humdrum truth.
Good luck turning that around, YouTube.
Jasper
I wonder who decides the criteria for ‘significant debate’. For instance, will videos about religion qualify?
Scott Johnson
Hopefully they will qualify.
Lee Adam Wilshier
Wikipedia is not at all reliable, and I stopped using it as a source of information a long while ago. Pages are edited by ‘interested parties’ to push agendas and skew the information one way and to give a certain impression, usually this is done by editing-out parts of the page they do not agree with so it’s a form of ‘lying by omission’, when the text is put back by another user there starts an editing-war and eventually those who get worn-out and tired at constantly trying to re-include the relevant information give up and the page stays incomplete. This is most applicable to those pages where heated debate is concerned, and this is exactly the type of content Youtube will be directing to apparently. Anyway, Wikipedia is no longer a good source, look elsewhere. if you want impartial facts and information.
mike@gmail.com
I have to be honest this is such BS. Wikipedia, which I’ve personally, repeatedly and successfully manipulated. And other sources, approved by who? Someone with an agenda, that’s who. If they want to actually do something about this, they should look into adopting something like a moderated debate program, or opposing editorials that can be highlighted and the AUDIENCE itself can research and review. Google and others are turning people off from their products in a big way, because you can’t trust someone, who insists you trust them without reason. And we’ve foolishly put a LOT of trust into these companies by our actions (using their services, providing personal information, “agreeing” to insane user privacy agreements over the years).
jim
So, your agenda is OK but others’ are not? It’s one thing to swat at a commercial enterprise that tilts it’s information in a way that helps it’s profits. That’s been going on since advertising was invented. The majority of educated people (6th grade or better) figure that out pretty quickly. Yes, I agree that online titillation and obfuscation is much more difficult to parse than a TV commercial (Cal Worthington car sales for example in Southern Cal).
But tell me, how is what you claim to have done by altering Wikipedia any different from what all of those online businesses have had their lawyers do? Is it their profit motive that offends you?
If so, just don’t use them. Or run for political office and try to get laws enacted to stop that abuse. Or even better, come up with an alternate service that will compete by being honest, trustworthy, and can certify itself as being so.
I’ll sign up if you do that. Then again, P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Rae Griest (@rae_griest)
I think the problem is people are not very good critical thinkers. They may never have been taught how or thought it was not important to learn and sharpen the skill. Social network consumers need to pay closer attention to what they share. Confirm it is accurate before they pass it on. Learn the difference between fact and opinion.
brianc6234
Susan Wojcicki needs to go. She’s a horrible liberal who thinks anything conservative is fake news. She has no right to be running any company with opinions like hers. Since she took over as CEO of YouTube it’s been a huge wreck.
Bryan
“a huge wreck”
Oh I dunno. 11 months ago YouTube adopted a policy to requires 10,000 views on an account before distributing revenue from videos.
She may be too liberal, but political leanings (aside) have nothing to do with why that’s a change for the better. And I can still admit it’s improvement–despite that it was precisely the opposite of a personal financial benefit to me.
CanHasDIY
Trying to disprove conspiracy theories with Wikipedia entries is like trying to clean up an oil spill with a tank of gasoline.
Tracy
We are giving these conspiracy and fake news stories too much play. The more the media types try to downplay these things the bigger the following becomes. If the conspiracy theorist want me to believe them then they have to prove it definitively. Not just show me some fuzzy video footage or grainy photos. Show me proof. Forgive me but I do not care what you “think you see or know”. Proof. The moon landing was a great day in the United States history. Do I believe it happened? Yes. Did it impact my life to the degree that if it was proven a lie that it would change my live even to the Nth degree? No. What rules my life is what happens to me and affects me personally. Sorry but that is how I see it. :) YouTude is just reacting to the whims of other. Trying to be seen as the good guy. Fine. I rate them in the same category as Facebook and Twitter. I can live without them. ;)
roleary
Won’t this get the wikipedia pages vandalised with the conspiracy videos cited in support of the edits?
mike@gmail.com
definitely will.
Nobody_Holme
Wiki has always been the best at policing out conspiracies on big things quickly, and the utter worst at handling minor things like an individual of lesser note trying to change their public image, or being slandered by a group.
For the use YouTube have here? It’s great.