YouTube To Blame For Rise in Flat Earth Believers, Says Study (cnet.com)

According to research, almost everyone who believes in flat Earth theory got started on YouTube. From a report: Asheley Landrum is an assistant professor of science communication at Texas Tech University. Her focus: how cultural values affect our understanding of science. Most recently she's been looking at the rise of flat Earth theory. Incredibly, more people than ever believe in a flat Earth. Google searches for "flat earth" have grown massively over the past five years and flat Earth conventions have begun popping up all over the globe. That's where Landrum focused her research. Landrum interviewed 30 people who attended one flat Earth convention and found that all but one became flat Earthers after watching videos on YouTube.

She presented her research at an event run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While Landrum didn't explicitly blame YouTube for the rise in flat Earth believers, she does believe that Google could be doing more to stop the spread of scientifically incorrect ideas. "There's a lot of helpful information on YouTube but also a lot of misinformation," she said, as reported by The Guardian. "Their algorithms make it easy to end up going down the rabbit hole, by presenting information to people who are going to be more susceptible to it."

Comments

"Flat Earth conventions have begun popping up all

[phonewebcam]

..over the globe"

We all saw what you did there.

Re:"Flat Earth conventions have begun popping up a

[mentil]

The Earth is flat from the point of view of the 4th spatial dimension. Flat-Earthers are actually cosmic horrors possessing the weak-minded.

Re:"Flat Earth conventions have begun popping up a

[Errol backfiring]

All over the disc, that is. I wonder if their compasses have directions named H (Hubwards), T (Turnwise), R (Rimwards) and W (widdershins) as well.

Re:what is the problem?

[sheramil]

why is that in this era that we are living in, people can't believe in what they want?

For flat earthers, I don't mind if they believe what they believe, as long as they aren't put in charge of map-making, arranging routes for cargo ships, or setting orbits for satellites.

There are other varieties of "ignint" [tm Zappa] that are actively dangerous; vaxxers, for example (I can't see their problem, really - the Vax 11-780 was a cool machine for its time).

Re:Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[DontBeAMoran]

And he has to be able to think of alternate third hypotheses to not fall into the false dilemma trap (e.g. there is not only Darwinism and Biblical Creationism, there is also the Flying Spaghetti Monster).

Well, we all know that this third hypothesis is just complete nonsense. The only valid third hypothesis is, of course, the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

Re:Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[DontBeAMoran]

I can easily explain this photograph:
- the file format is JPEG, in 24-bit colours, which is the appropriate format considering the image
- the DPI is set at 72 pixels per inch
- its dimensions are 300 × 294 pixels
- the file size is 27628 bytes

Re:Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[DontBeAMoran]

What would be funny is "around the world" cruises for flat-earthers.