Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Is Fighting Conspiracy Theories With 'Authoritative' Context and Outside Links (theverge.com)
In an effort to reduce misinformation on YouTube, the video-sharing website will be adding "authoritative" context to search results about conspiracy-prone topics, as well as putting $25 million toward news outlets producing videos. YouTube made the announcement today as part of a new step in its Google News Initiative, a journalism-focused program that aims to help publishers earn revenue and combat fake news. The Verge reports: This update includes new features for breaking news updates and long-standing conspiracy theories. YouTube is implementing a change it announced in March, annotating conspiracy-related pages with text from "trusted sources like Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica." And in the hours after a major news event, YouTube will supplement search results with links to news articles, reasoning that rigorous outlets often publish text before producing video.
YouTube is also funding a number of partnerships. It's establishing a working group that will provide input on how it handles news, and it's providing money for "sustainable" video operations across 20 markets across the world, in addition to expanding an internal support team for publishers.
YouTube is also funding a number of partnerships. It's establishing a working group that will provide input on how it handles news, and it's providing money for "sustainable" video operations across 20 markets across the world, in addition to expanding an internal support team for publishers.
Let people learn when they screw up
Our last election, and even current reporting, showed that a lot of people do not learn, and even the ones that do end up learning too late. If Google can do something to flag obviously false reports as what they are, then I say more power to them -- it'll be doing us a service.
Even if they take things that are merely probably false or highly spun and supply a few links to what reputable sources say about the issue, that'd help keep people more informed and outside of their bubble.
I don't like having one company be an arbiter of truth either, but... if people can't do it for themselves, who is going to do it? Traditional news agencies have been unable to counter this round of nonsense, and in some cases are contributing to it.
The person who won does not matter to my post. There is evidence showing that regardless of who you were voting for, you were being targeted. Some of it was more obvious than others, but people on all sides of the political spectrum -- me included -- failed to filter out some of the spin coming their way.
Stop jumping to conclusions with divisive outrage. It's what they wanted. There's no room for pride here.