YouTube Will Put Disclaimers On State-Funded Broadcasts To Fight Propaganda (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: YouTube's latest strategy to fight the spread of misinformation involves putting a disclaimer on videos from certain news sources. The online video website announced it will start labeling videos posted by state-funded broadcasters to alert viewers that the content is, in some part, funded by a government source. YouTube will begin labeling videos today, and the policy extends to outlets including the US's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the Russian government broadcaster RT. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, PBS videos will now have the label "publicly funded American broadcaster," while RT will have this disclaimer: "RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government." The new policy is YouTube's way of informing viewers about where the content they're watching is coming from, a piece of information often hidden or left unsought by the viewers themselves. "The principle here is to provide more information to our users, and let our users make the judgment themselves, as opposed to us being in the business of providing any sort of editorial judgment on any of these things ourselves," YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan told the WSJ.

Comments

For the US, the picture isn't all that clear...

[bogaboga]

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, PBS videos will now have the label "publicly funded American broadcaster," while RT will have this disclaimer: "RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government."

Though mainstream media in the US aren't directly funded by the US government, they get favors from time to time. Otherwise how would one explain the fact that *all* mainstream media basically regurgitated the government's position in previous [unfortunate and unnecessary] wars?

These are wars that are continuing to some degree even as I write this. After causing chaos, mayhem, confusion in distant lands, the US basically stated, "It's not our problem."

Just ask the Europeans who now have to deal with the refugee influx by what our leaders caused with no checks from the media whatsoever!!!

Re:For the US, the picture isn't all that clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a technical distinction. In day-to-day life many huge corporations have more power to fuck you over in real, perceptible ways than the government does. Yes you theoretically could get tossed into Gitmo or Branch Davidian-ed, but the odds are infinitesimal. Your cable company or your power company or your ISP or Google or Facebook are much more likely to screw you in ways you can actually feel.

And as little as I fear the American government killing or imprisoning me for wrongthink, I fear the Russians doing it from the other side of the planet even less.

What is there to gain by tagging PBS?

[damn_registrars]

I've seen more politics on HGTV than I have seen on PBS. It's rather preposterous to claim that PBS is pushing some sort of political agenda. Their news coverage is arguably the least politically biased of any network that you can watch in the US.

Wait a minute

[fustakrakich]

Are they saying there's a difference between government propaganda and corporate propaganda (advertising)? That's a bit off I would say...

Re:This Will Backfire

[serviscope_minor]

People don't trust CNN, MSNBC, etc because they lie fucking constantly

Funny thing is the kind of people who say that kind of thing seem to prefer Breitbart and even Infowars.

Which is ironic.

Re:This Will Backfire

[serviscope_minor]

They're all shit, the only difference is

And you're wronger than both put together.

Even if I concede the others are shit, Breirbart and Infowars are much, much worse.

Objectively.

When was the last time either of those two published a retraction or correction?