It is not necessary to produce events of great importance to warn that conspiracy theories find a perfect showcase on YouTube , from those most harmless to the most potentially dangerous . However, with severe episodes like the shooting at a school in Florida on the table, emerge with greater impact. And the platform wants to avoid it with Wikipedia.
Susan Wojcicki, general director of YouTube, said Tuesday at the South by Southwest conference held in Austin, Texas, that they are not a news agency but that “if there is an important news event, we want to provide the correct information.”
An effort to address the dissemination of disinformation on YouTube that will not only have the help of the free encyclopedia, although the next steps are to be finalized. For now, they will focus on the most recurrent of the conspiracy. Although the initiative promises, the Google executive warns that it should not be seen as a large-scale solution to a complex problem.
Dismantling the ‘chemtrails’ or the discredit of the moon landings, for now
The function, which called information cues , which we could translate as clues, clues or informative indications, will be launched in the coming months and will accompany additional Wikipedia information, at the moment, more or less popular conspiracy theories that generate a meaningful debate on the Google video platform.
For example, according to the presentation that could be seen during the conference and collected by BuzzFeed , videos that suggest or assure the falsehood of the Apollo Moon landings or defend the existence of chemtrails . Next to them, below, a text box will appear that will offer Wikipedia information with a different point of view. Information, in addition, that will be shown regardless of whether the audiovisual is a documentary or a diatribe that advocates the assembly in the case of the mission to the Moon.
What is not clear is how YouTube intends to deal with the last minute eventsthat in their first measures do not usually have information or good information in the free encyclopedia, because “Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper” , nor how the platform of videos can guarantee the accuracy of the data contained in the suggested pages. The collaborative project, recurrently, has been discussed in terms of its reliability despite the fact that efforts to ensure correct information have intensified over the years.
It should also be remembered that in violent events in the United States and other countries, such as the shooting in a school that we referred to at the beginning, Google’s own algorithms of service have promoted videos that falsely assure that attacks They were a hoax.