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Wikipedia Had No Idea YouTube Was Going To Use It To Fact-Check Conspiracy Theories (gizmodo.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the a-heads-up-would-be-nice dept.

Yesterday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced that the company would drop a Wikipedia link beneath videos on highly contested topics. We have now learned that Wikipedia did not know about this move prior to the announcement. Gizmodo reports: In a Twitter thread asking the public to support Wikipedia as much as it relies on it, Wikimedia executive director Katherine Maher first suggested that the organization was unaware of YouTube's plans. When asked whether this new module would only apply to English Wikipedia pages, Maher responded, "I couldn't say; this was something they did independent of us." In a statement to Gizmodo, the Wikimedia Foundation confirmed that the organization first learned of the new YouTube feature on Tuesday. "We are always happy to see people, companies, and organizations recognize Wikipedia's value as a repository of free knowledge," a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson said in a statement. "In this case, neither Wikipedia nor the Wikimedia Foundation are part of a formal partnership with YouTube. We were not given advance notice of this announcement."

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Do you know what this will actually do? by ckatko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This means the WIKIPEDIA articles will start to huge a huge influx of people who aren't normally wiki editors. And you know what Wikipedia is? Free for ANYONE to edit.

    So what does that do? It means Wikipedia articles that get linked will 1) Have huge bandwidth costs thanks to YouTube, and 2) get edited by people who love conspiracies and end up way shittier.

    Thanks, YouTube!

    Ever think that Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire album came out like... 15 yeas too early? If they had any idea how big Facebook and Google would become, they would have come up with another 5 albums worth of content.

    1. Re:Do you know what this will actually do? by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      YouTube could mitigate this by linking to specific revisions of the articles. So it will deincentivize people to vandalize them snice YouTubers won't see it.

  2. Re:Don't rely on Wikipedia for your facts by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even I know that Venezuela and the USSR are very illiberal.