# YouTube will be rolling out a fact-checking feature for conspiracy theory/hoax videos



## Xzi (Mar 9, 2019)

https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-starts-rolling-out-fact-check-information-panels-2019-3



			
				BI said:
			
		

> YouTube is bringing out a feature which flashes up fact-checking information cards when people search for topics which attract hoaxes and conspiracy theories.
> 
> The feature is only available to a select number of Indian users at the moment, but YouTube says it will eventually be rolled out globally.
> 
> The spread of misinformation in India has been under the microscope recently, as last year videos circulated on WhatsApp led to lynchings.



Interesting news, seems like a step in the right direction to me, though I'm sure not everybody will see it that way.  There are unfortunately a lot of people who do get their news from Youtube as well as Facebook, mostly younger kids, so there should be some sort of baseline feature for calling out blatant nonsense.  A filter would also be great for those of us who don't ever use Youtube for that garbage and don't want it recommended to us.


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## SG854 (Mar 9, 2019)

Bad idea. It’s going to back fire. I can see them abusing this to fit an agenda. I don’t see what’s the problem from getting news from YouTube. People post links and sources to News Sites and Academic papers on YouTube.

YouTube has all kinds of people from Lawyers, Sex Reseachers, Doctors, Scientists, Math Educators. I don’t see the problem from getting News and Information from them. Or even idenpendent journalists who are good at reporting information accurately. Actually I trust them, a YouTuber with a Doctors, more then a CNN journalist who has no degree in Neurology.

Unfortunately Big Mainstream News organizations do get their information from Twitter because it’s the easy route for them because it saves them time and garuntees money. That’s why they had a problem getting the Covington story right. News Orinizations are not that much better in this department, they have gotten rid of many of their fact checkers and are not much more reliable. Some even have a agenda that doesn’t Match scientific research.


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## Xzi (Mar 9, 2019)

SG854 said:


> YouTube has all kinds of people from Lawyers, Sex Reseachers, Doctors, Scientists, Math Educators. I don’t see the problem from getting News and Information from them.


The problem is that there is neither a journalistic standard that anyone has to uphold on Youtube, nor is there any fact-checking whatsoever at current.  You can make any wild claim you want about anybody, and end up causing physical harm to that person or their family.  If you're watching Ted Talks or something similar then it's obviously not as much of a concern, but videos promoting outrage or violence over wild speculation need to have a clear warning label.  The people that think that label is just there to "push an agenda" are going to ignore it and watch the video anyway.


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## Hanafuda (Mar 9, 2019)

Xzi said:


> The problem is that there is neither a journalistic standard that anyone has to uphold on Youtube=




And that should be all there is to it. News on Youtube shouldn't be considered any more credible than the National Enquirer or Weekly World News. _That's_ the reality that needs to be disseminated, not the dictates of a "Ministry of Truth."


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## SG854 (Mar 9, 2019)

Xzi said:


> You can make any wild claim you want about anybody, and end up causing physical harm to that person or their family.  If you're watching Ted Talks or something similar then it's obviously not as much of a concern, but videos promoting outrage or violence over wild speculation need to have a clear warning label.


If they are inciting harm then I agree they should get warnings, then shut down if they don’t follow those rules. Shuting down hoaxers. I’m not in agreement, people should be free to talk what they want. YouTube might abuse this and label people that doesn’t follow their agenda to shut them down.



Xzi said:


> The problem is that there is neither a journalistic standard that anyone has to uphold on Youtube, nor is there any fact-checking whatsoever at current.  You can make any wild claim you want about anybody, and end up causing physical harm to that person or their family.


Just like the Covington case. Maintstream Media completely fabricated a story. They aren’t much better.

Even mainstream outlets aren’t any better then random people on YouTube. 

Here’s the problem with Mainstream Journalist, they have a Degree in language, not a degree in Sciences. So it’s sometimes beyond their understanding. They report on what the scientists say. I’d rather get my information straight from the expert themselves rather then the journalist. 

I have caught them many times putting out false information. The topic about more then 2 genders is one of them or that gender is a social construct. Sex researchers will tell you more then 2 genders and gender being a social construct is non sense like Dr. Debra Soh. And why pushing this has real life consequences.

They can’t even get the gender thing right. This is my problem with mainstream media. Their information isn’t always reliable, their fact checkers aren’t always reliable. The everyday person has to do their own investigation to find out the truth, looking for the right people because they at times put out false information.


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## Viri (Mar 9, 2019)

You keep your dirty hands off my conspiracy theories involving aliens, Youtube! I love to watch them when I'm bored!


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## Xzi (Mar 9, 2019)

Hanafuda said:


> And that should be all there is to it. News on Youtube shouldn't be considered any more credible than the National Enquirer or Weekly World News. _That's_ the reality that needs to be disseminated


The problem is that this doesn't fix anything.  The message won't reach the people that actually need to hear it.



SG854 said:


> If they are inciting harm then I agree they should get warnings, then shut down if they don’t follow those rules. Shuting down hoaxers.


If you read the article, that's exactly the reason it's being implemented: certain Youtube videos were circulated in India which ended up leading to lynchings.



SG854 said:


> Just like the Covington case. Maintstream Media completely fabricated a story. They aren’t much better.


No, nothing like Covington, don't belittle this.  The spread of dangerous misinformation is much bigger than any one story on its own.


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## FAST6191 (Mar 9, 2019)

Is there much of "a journalistic standard" anywhere these days? Most places seem content to spew sloppily sourced, poorly checked, or out and out utter bollocks.

That said if it is mostly just treated as an effort rather than being dubbed some flavour of silver bullet then whatever.


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## SG854 (Mar 9, 2019)

Xzi said:


> The problem is that this doesn't fix anything.  The message won't reach the people that actually need to hear it.
> 
> 
> If you read the article, that's exactly the reason it's being implemented: certain Youtube videos were circulated in India which ended up leading to lynchings.
> ...


The Covington case was not a small issue. They were being harassed because of the fake news that they had to shut down their entire school for their safety because there was threats of violence. It was not a small issue at all.

If a person says go beat up this person on a video then yes shut them down.

But I don’t want them to shut down Hoaxers. People should be free to talk about flat earth all they want.

They are going to police information as if they are the authority. They are essentially giving the top spot to who they think is better. But Politifact isn’t always right, or Quint (example used in the article). The way the fact checker is setup, it can perpetuate fake news rather then solve the issue. And they are shutting down, deplatforming alternative news and their competition.

Imagine this system with the covington case. YouTube actually got this right, and the alternative news is how people learned the truth.


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## Xzi (Mar 9, 2019)

SG854 said:


> If a person says go beat up this person on a video then yes shut them down.
> 
> But I don’t want them to shut down Hoaxers. People should be free to talk about flat earth all they want.


Again it's clear you haven't read the article or even the bullet points I posted, they aren't proposing closing anyone's channel or taking down vids.  Just a warning that pops up when searching for certain topics which displays the facts.

People getting their news from Youtube is how we end up with anti-vaxxers and pizzagaters.  Stuff like this that's perceived as harmless in the beginning can quickly end up leading to bad outcomes on a larger scale.



SG854 said:


> Imagine this system with the covington case. YouTube actually got this right, and the alternative news is how people learned the truth.


Covington will always come down to opinion.  There are other videos of those same kids yelling "it's not rape if you enjoy it" at women, so it's hard to buy the narrative that these kids are saints.  In the end, nobody got hurt and no crimes were committed, so I think the lawsuit is frivolous and will be tossed.


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## Captain_N (Mar 9, 2019)

more control is great. It never leads to anything bad, said nobody. People that believe stupid shit are themselves stupid. Question is do you all want the government to control the facts?


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## IncredulousP (Mar 9, 2019)

Why stop at conspiracy theories? Why not on anything that claims to deliver news as well?


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## bodefuceta (Mar 9, 2019)

Captain_N said:


> more control is great. It never leads to anything bad, said nobody. People that believe stupid shit are themselves stupid. Question is do you all want the government to control the facts?


You do, if:
a) You're a radical collectivist
b) You'd use any method to sway people's opinion
c) You think "the governement"(in this case it's Youtube) is on your side
Which a surprising amount of people fit in. It's how you narrow Overton's window towards your side. Truly free environments, particularly ones where individuals had a lot of time to enjoy, are complete opposite to all of these ideas and also to most of these people's mindset. Some form of control is very neccessary for gaining popularity on their ideologies.


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## Captain_N (Mar 9, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> You do, if:
> a) You're a radical collectivist
> b) You'd use any method to sway people's opinion
> c) You think "the governement"(in this case it's Youtube) is on your side
> Which a surprising amount of people fit in. It's how you narrow Overton's window towards your side. Truly free environments, particularly ones where individuals had a lot of time to enjoy, are complete opposite to all of these ideas and also to most of these people's mindset. Some form of control is very necessarily for gaining popularity on their ideologies.



I agree. There has to be some control. Youtube is owned by google and google can choose to censor what ever they want. Same thing as facebook and twitter. The problem is people see these stories on all those stupid feeds on facebook. I dont use any social media except well forums like GBATemp. Youtube is about as good as wikipedia with facts. When im fact checking, i dont use them. Most collages will not let you quote from them either. When the government tells google what to censor then we have a problem. China censors about everything.


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## notimp (Mar 9, 2019)

Here is the thing. How do they differentiate?

Algos based on factcheckers keywords based on algorithmically gleaned meaning, based on video description, based on auto speech to text, based on reputation of the channel?

It always strikes me as odd, when people would like for youtube or facebook to show editorial responsibility, because their businessmodels are built around the fact that you cant (Bazillion minutes of videos uploaded every minute).

Isnt this a millennial problem again, where some people simply will vote trump because of optimized for popularity, on something that no one even potentially factchecked, and now you somehow have to make an appearence of "democracy not broken" and algos will fix it all.

Depends on what "tone" the feature is set in I guess. Depends on how transparent they make the decision process for popup to activate.

Dont necessarily think that its bad, but there are potential tripping hazards and issues.

If you remember the fake news scandal in the german Spiegel for example, it was as bad, because they had a factchecking department.

Whasts likely to set in is people believing videos without the popup a bit more... :/ I'm thinking about unintended consequences again..


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## Taleweaver (Mar 10, 2019)

Hmm... It's a step in the right direction, but I fear it's also a step in a muddy swap. The problem is a lack of oversight (aka an objective source with unlimited knowledge on everything and a bias toward nothing) on what is real and what isn't.

I mean .. Doesn't fox news just stacks up Pinocchios at this point? Isn't Donald Trump beating an average of 17 lies a day?
The answer isn't so much yes or no, but 'I choose to (not) believe it'. 

And... I think even the experiment will fail. If hoaxes go viral on WhatsApp, then a filter on YouTube is just going to discredit YouTube before it can even gain a good reputation (which, again, is critical in this sort of thing).


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## DarthDub (Mar 10, 2019)

Conspiracy theories are actually entertaining. Don't take my fun away Youtube!


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## the_randomizer (Mar 10, 2019)

I don't use YouTube as a news source, nor do I give a tin schilling about conspiracy video crap.


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## comput3rus3r (Mar 10, 2019)

I see youtube news the same way I see mainstream news. Full of lies.


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## the_randomizer (Mar 10, 2019)

comput3rus3r said:


> I see youtube news the same way I see mainstream news. Full of lies.



Yeah, I don't trust really any major news outlet, nor do I trust the lamestream media, all full of sensationalist BS just to get viewership up.


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## Noctosphere (Mar 11, 2019)

Bye bye Momo challenge's death creepypasta videos


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## Saiyan Lusitano (Mar 12, 2019)

It kind of already started. YouTube states on RussiaToday's videos the following:







The Western media is obsessed with Russia and blaming everything on Russia.

That said, would I trust YouTube "fact" checks? Haha. No.


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## Xzi (Mar 12, 2019)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> It kind of already started. YouTube states on RussiaToday's videos the following:
> 
> The Western media is obsessed with Russia and blaming everything on Russia.
> 
> That said, would I trust YouTube "fact" checks? Haha. No.


That's a different addition they rolled out quite a while ago, just tells you what ads/videos are sponsored by Russia.  And no, we don't "blame everything on Russia," but they are an international adversary, not an ally.  Pretending Putin is a good guy that never interferes with other countries would be disingenuous, to say the least.  Hell, Russia already has its troll-bots working the web for the 2020 election, and the primaries haven't even begun yet.


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## the_randomizer (Mar 12, 2019)

You can't trust Russia, period. Look at their Kaspersky antivirus program, why would anyone want to use that on their PC?


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## ShadowOne333 (Mar 12, 2019)

Hope the first victim is MatPat and his bullshit "theories"


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## the_randomizer (Mar 12, 2019)

ShadowOne333 said:


> Hope the first victim is MatPat and his bullshit "theories"



Why? His videos are actually entertaining lol


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## Xzi (Mar 12, 2019)

ShadowOne333 said:


> Hope the first victim is MatPat and his bullshit "theories"


I kinda doubt video game theory Youtube vids are inspiring violence or spreading dangerous misinformation.


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## the_randomizer (Mar 12, 2019)

Xzi said:


> I kinda doubt video game theory Youtube vids are inspiring violence or spreading dangerous misinformation.



He actually uses science and math to ridiculous levels in his videos too.

Still more reliable than CNN or ASSNBC.


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## Noctosphere (Mar 12, 2019)

the_randomizer said:


> He actually uses science and math *to ridiculous levels* in his videos too.
> 
> Still more reliable than CNN or ASSNBC.


that reminds me @FAST6191 who over analyse every post i make 
always too serious...


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## FAST6191 (Mar 12, 2019)

ShadowOne333 said:


> Hope the first victim is MatPat and his bullshit "theories"


Why do conspiracy when you can do better with copyright infringement?


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> Why do conspiracy when you can do better with copyright infringement?



Eh, I watched the whole video, and he didn't make a great case for actually being copied here.  Toward the end he even conceded that the wording was completely different and MatPat still managed to make a couple mistakes that LegalEagle did not.


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## Glyptofane (Mar 13, 2019)

The same thing and "people" responsible for everything we are currently organizing to resist. Okay!


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

Glyptofane said:


> The same thing and "people" responsible for everything we are currently organizing to resist. Okay!


Wait, who's organizing to resist Google?  They haven't always made the best decisions, but I'd still prefer if they were in charge of government right now as opposed to who we actually have.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Covington will always come down to opinion. There are other videos of those same kids yelling "it's not rape if you enjoy it" at women, so it's hard to buy the narrative that these kids are saints. In the end, nobody got hurt and no crimes were committed, so I think the lawsuit is frivolous and will be tossed.



Wat? How does it come down to opinion? If anything your statement is an example of how dangerous misinformation spreads.
First of all, I'd like to see your sources for your statement that "other videos of those same kids yelling "it's not rape if you enjoy it" at women".
All I can verify is that:

there aren't videos (plural) there's one video, with someone saying "it's not rape if you enjoy it"
it's not kids (plural) in that video it's one kid, so unless guilt by association is a thing for you maybe not villify the whole group
he isn't directing it at women, they're confronting a known male black anti-LGBT hate group, you know, the one that the native american gentleman described as the kids' prey
Here's the video


So really we're talking about one kid saying something stupid when the camera is pointed at him and somehow that's good enough to justify high profile twitter users actively calling for violence and doxxing of these kids which DIRECTLY lead to the school having to close down? This is not a small issue and it certainly isn't one of opinion.

To be fair there's an out of context video of what looks like these kids yelling something at girls passing by. I will be careful with assessing what happened there as the whole story was built on out of context video snippets and I can't really make out what they're saying either.
Here's the tweeted video of that exchange
https://twitter.com/roflinds/status...://www.dailydot.com/irl/covington-boys-video/

I'm not sure on the legal matter but I highly doubt no crimes have been committed, there's numerous examples of verified twitter users calling for violence against these kids. With regards to news outlets, I'd say it's at least a violation of journalistic ethos, the story has not been researched at all, it's pretty obvious they didn't make the effort to look at the whole recording. Whether that's libel if it doesn't involve public figures is for the courts to decide, calling the lawsuit frivolous is ridiculous.

Again, I will give you the benefit of the doubt of being dangerously misinformed here. But at the end of the day the outrage mob caused, in part, by bad reporting without any research directly lead to a school closing down due to violent threats.



> but videos promoting outrage or violence over wild speculation need to have a clear warning label



You can easily make the argument that news outlets produced videos promoting outrage over wild speculation. I hope you can now see where people that have a problem with fact-checking algorithms are coming from.
The fear is that, with regards to controversial stories, too much trust is extended to certain certain people, outlets or channels that in the recent past have shown to not be deserving of this trust. Not to mention the obvious conflict of interest should a hoax or cover-up effort be driven by an advertiser.
I will agree that giving a PSA type warning that a virus has not been found in medication as shown in the article you posted is a good thing. The challenge I see is that with political stories, which they mention they will apply this to as well, it's rarely as black and white as this. I guess the question I have would be: "Would a warning pop up that says there's no evidence for the Covington kids having chanted 'Build that Wall'?"


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## DBlaze (Mar 13, 2019)

the_randomizer said:


> You can't trust Russia, period. Look at their Kaspersky antivirus program, why would anyone want to use that on their PC?


You can't trust USA, period. Look at the company called Cisco, why would anyone want to use their hardware in their network?

Oh no it's like countries like to spy on / meddle in other countries, who would've thought.
Surely the USA would never do these things and it's only Russia and China doing these big bad things, right?

:^)


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> I'm not sure on the legal matter but I highly doubt no crimes have been committed, there's numerous examples of verified twitter users calling for violence against these kids.


Twitter is the platform that even the president uses to make threats directed at others, but Twitter's ToS is not the law and they barely enforce it anyway.



supersonicwaffle said:


> You can easily make the argument that news outlets produced videos promoting outrage over wild speculation. I hope you can now see where people that have a problem with fact-checking algorithms are coming from.
> The fear is that, with regards to controversial stories, too much trust is extended to certain certain people, outlets or channels that in the recent past have shown to not be deserving of this trust.


This is simply whataboutism and not really relevant.  TV news has its own regulations and issues it has to deal with, but that's a different discussion.  Youtube and Facebook are likely two of the biggest culprits when it comes to the spread of 'fake news,' and though nobody should be getting their news from either source, the sad reality is that a lot of people do.  They aren't oppressing anyone's speech with factoid bubbles, it's the least intrusive method of combating disinformation.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Twitter is the platform that even the president uses to make threats directed at others, but Twitter's ToS is not the law and they barely enforce it anyway.



I'm certainly no fan of trump but can you see the irony in equating threats of violence from the person being mandated to run the organisation that has the legal monopoly on voilence and regular citizens that don't and on top of that call me out on whataboutism?
That being said I am not aware of threats of violence from Trump on Twitter, that's not me saying there are none, I'm just not informed about it.
I also fail to see what legal difference it makes whether you make a statement via twitter or a different medium.



> This is simply whataboutism and not really relevant.  TV news has its own regulations and issues it has to deal with, but that's a different discussion.  Youtube and Facebook are likely two of the biggest culprits when it comes to the spread of 'fake news,' and though nobody should be getting their news from either source, the sad reality is that a lot of people do.  They aren't oppressing anyone's speech with factoid bubbles, it's the least intrusive method of combating disinformation.



Sorry, you're dead wrong.

You're using the word whataboutism wrong according to its Wikipedia definition. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism). I was obviously not trying to attribute hyprocrisy to your argument, I even stated that I could be in favor of such an implementation. You're just using it as a cheap cop out to stop thinking about consequences.
TV shows are regularly uploaded to YouTube by stations themselves. I fail not to see its relevancy.
YouTube and Facebook are not sources, the people posting on these platforms are the source. I understand that algorithms are responsible for serving up recommendations and that accellerates the spreading of fake news. This, however, would be a discussion about how recommendations should be tweaked.
I agree with the premise of such an implementation. But as I've outlined, political issues aren't as black and white as a substance never being found in pills. It's fair to have a discussion to what extent these algorithms should be applied and how it determines something as factual. Obviously in case of the Covington kids fake news have been spread in TV which was in turn uploaded to YouTube (even days after it was debunked), in papers and on different news sites. How would a machine learn that information spread by the biggest news outlets in the world is non-factual? If it's humans applying these warnings manually, how do you ensure they're correct? You'd essentially have to hold them to a higher standard than journalists. Crowdsource it? Wikipedia has conflicting information! Again, I'm not trying to call out hyprocrisy, I'm trying to discuss challenges.


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## Saiyan Lusitano (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Hell, Russia already has its troll-bots working the web for the 2020 election



There it is again. Russophobia has been normalized, that's for sure.


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## the_randomizer (Mar 13, 2019)

DBlaze said:


> You can't trust USA, period. Look at the company called Cisco, why would anyone want to use their hardware in their network?
> 
> Oh no it's like countries like to spy on / meddle in other countries, who would've thought.
> Surely the USA would never do these things and it's only Russia and China doing these big bad things, right?
> ...



Let's face it, no country can ever be trusted 



Saiyan Lusitano said:


> There it is again. Russophobia has been normalized, that's for sure.


I don't care as long as Bernie doesn't win


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## BlastedGuy9905 (Mar 13, 2019)

It might end up like the copyright system. I've got a bad-ish feeling.


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## the_randomizer (Mar 13, 2019)

BlastedGuy9905 said:


> It might end up like the copyright system. I've got a bad-ish feeling.



The algorithms they use suck ass.


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> There it is again. Russophobia has been normalized, that's for sure.


The facts are on my side, sorry.  It's not like this stuff can't be tracked, just not _all_ of it can be tracked.

https://botsentinel.com/

https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/#

Not even Russia denies it used a massive botwave last election, so I gotta question your motives in saying, "do not look at the man behind the curtain."

Nobody said Russia is targeting us specifically, either.  In my second link you can find news stories about them targeting British think tanks and EU institutions as well.  The more Putin can drag down Democracy worldwide, the less pathetic Russia looks compared to the rest of the world.


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> I'm certainly no fan of trump but can you see the irony in equating threats of violence from the person being mandated to run the organisation that has the legal monopoly on voilence and regular citizens that don't and on top of that call me out on whataboutism?


I don't see the irony in that, no.  The president isn't a king, so if Twitter sets the precedent that they aren't going to charge him with any crimes for making online threats, then that precedent applies to everyone else using Twitter within the US too.



supersonicwaffle said:


> TV shows are regularly uploaded to YouTube by stations themselves. I fail not to see its relevancy.


I fail to see how that makes it any more relevant than it was previously.  As I said, TV news has a whole different set of regulations they have to adhere to.  Internet news is almost entirely without regulation of any sort still.



supersonicwaffle said:


> YouTube and Facebook are not sources, the people posting on these platforms are the source. I understand that algorithms are responsible for serving up recommendations and that accellerates the spreading of fake news. This, however, would be a discussion about how recommendations should be tweaked.


The source is whoever/whatever gave the news outlet information enough to base a story on.  Not the person who posted it.



supersonicwaffle said:


> I agree with the premise of such an implementation. But as I've outlined, political issues aren't as black and white as a substance never being found in pills. It's fair to have a discussion to what extent these algorithms should be applied and how it determines something as factual. Obviously in case of the Covington kids fake news have been spread in TV which was in turn uploaded to YouTube (even days after it was debunked), in papers and on different news sites. How would a machine learn that information spread by the biggest news outlets in the world is non-factual? If it's humans applying these warnings manually, how do you ensure they're correct? You'd essentially have to hold them to a higher standard than journalists. Crowdsource it? Wikipedia has conflicting information! Again, I'm not trying to call out hyprocrisy, I'm trying to discuss challenges.


The thing is that they haven't announced any plans to target 'political' videos.  It's limited in scope to conspiracy theories and hoaxes, because those have been some of the most damaging videos lately.  They're also the easiest videos to disprove with maybe five minutes of research.

What concerns me about Youtube, perhaps even more than the spread of disinformation itself, is the algorithms by which people are recommended these disinformation videos/videos by hate groups.  Kids shouldn't be getting recommended neo-nazi vids after watching PewDiePie play Banjo-Kazooie or some shit.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> I don't see the irony in that, no.  The president isn't a king, so if Twitter sets the precedent that they aren't going to charge him with any crimes for making online threats, then that precedent applies to everyone else using Twitter within the US too.



Like I said I'm unaware of the threats, doing a quick google search all I could find was threats of military action, which is the irony I was getting at. I'd appreciate some example if you have some by hand.



> I fail to see how that makes it any more relevant than it was previously.  As I said, TV news has a whole different set of regulations they have to adhere to.  Internet news is almost entirely without regulation of any sort still.



We're discussing algorithms on YouTube, these shows are posted to YouTube and would be subject to the algorithm, if you can't make that connection then we're just wasting time.



> The source is whoever/whatever gave the news outlet information enough to base a story on.  Not the person who posted it.



You're correct, I hope you see now how idiotic it was now to say people use YouTube and Facebook as sources.



> The thing is that they haven't announced any plans to target 'political' videos.  It's limited in scope to conspiracy theories and hoaxes, because those have been some of the most damaging videos lately.  They're also the easiest videos to disprove with maybe five minutes of research.



From what I understand a conflict between Pakistanis and Indians is a political issue, your article says the algorithm will be rolled out to warn of misinformation there. It's literally in the article you posted.



> What concerns me about Youtube, perhaps even more than the spread of disinformation itself, is the algorithms by which people are recommended these disinformation videos/videos by hate groups.  Kids shouldn't be getting recommended neo-nazi vids after watching PewDiePie play Banjo-Kazooie or some shit.



According to this http://pyt.azureedge.net/ from this software engineer https://twitter.com/mark_ledwich left wing politics is dominating YouTube and receiving much more recommendations. I'd be more worried about kids being indoctrinated with communist propaganda than by Nazis. (Hint: this is whataboutism, but it really does no one a favor to look at only one side of the issue)
You can check out the source code here: https://github.com/markledwich2/YouTubeNetworks


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## the_randomizer (Mar 13, 2019)

I'm just going to say this, every time I see anything new related pop up on my YouTube feed, I remove it immediately, I like to manipulate my results a bit to my tastes. I sure as hell don't want to get my news from YouTube.


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> Like I said I'm unaware of the threats, doing a quick google search all I could find was threats of military action, which is the irony I was getting at. I'd appreciate some example if you have some by hand.


Well, there was the time he threatened nuclear war with Iran on Twitter, the multiple times he threatened investigations/jail against his political opponents, and the time he posted a wrestling gif of him hitting CNN in the back of the head with a chair.  So everything up to and including threats of physical violence.  I can post each of these individually if you'd like, but they're pretty well-known Tweets by now.



supersonicwaffle said:


> We're discussing algorithms on YouTube, these shows are posted to YouTube and would be subject to the algorithm, if you can't make that connection then we're just wasting time.


Which is not at all related to fact-checking conspiracy and hoax videos.  TV news issues its own retractions when they get their info wrong.



supersonicwaffle said:


> You're correct, I hope you see now how idiotic it was now to say people use YouTube and Facebook as sources.


They use Facebook and YouTube as sources for news gathering.  I was never suggesting that Facebook and YouTube publish their own news.



supersonicwaffle said:


> From what I understand a conflict between Pakistanis and Indians is a political issue, your article says the algorithm will be rolled out to warn of misinformation there. It's literally in the article you posted.


Correct.  It also says the feature will be rolled out worldwide at a later date.



supersonicwaffle said:


> According to this http://pyt.azureedge.net/ from this software engineer https://twitter.com/mark_ledwich left wing politics is dominating YouTube and receiving much more recommendations. I'd be more worried about kids being indoctrinated with communist propaganda than by Nazis. (Hint: this is whataboutism, but it really does no one a favor to look at only one side of the issue)


I didn't comment on which side of the political spectrum has more videos available on Youtube, just on how the recommendation algorithm is broken when it's recommending extremist political videos (of any kind) after watching a gaming video.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Well, there was the time he threatened nuclear war with Iran on Twitter, the multiple times he threatened investigations/jail against his political opponents, and the time he posted a wrestling gif of him hitting CNN in the back of the head with a chair.  So everything up to and including threats of physical violence.  I can post each of these individually if you'd like, but they're pretty well-known Tweets by now.



Thanks, I will look into it more to get a better understanding of whats happening and will try to find direct quotes.




> Which is not at all related to fact-checking conspiracy and hoax videos.  TV news issues its own retractions when they get their info wrong.



Pretty much all MSM reporting on the Covington kids case was a hoax, no retractions have been issued that I'm aware of.



> They use Facebook and YouTube as sources for news gathering.  I was never suggesting that Facebook and YouTube publish their own news.



I guess we have a misunderstanding. The point is there's nothing inherently wrong with YouTube or Facebook as a source for news gathering. What's the benefit of watching CNN on f.e. cable over subscribing to their YouTube channel? I'd like to think people are smart enough to seperate the outlet from the platform.




> Correct.  It also says the feature will be rolled out worldwide at a later date.



So now that we've agreed it will be applied to political issues the point still stands that things aren't as black and white in that area. I will wait and see what the implementation looks like and the extent of its application.



> I didn't comment on which side of the political spectrum has more videos available on Youtube, just on how the recommendation algorithm is broken when it's recommending extremist political videos (of any kind) after watching a gaming video.



We agree on that. I never really noticed neo-nazi stuff being recommended to me. It may also be different from region to region. I have also never seen any data that support this claim and in light of liberals being called Nazis all over the place it's kinda hard to gauge what type of content you really mean.


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> Pretty much all MSM reporting on the Covington kids case was a hoax, no retractions have been issued that I'm aware of.


Some quotes were wrongly attributed to the boys, but for the most part all TV news did was run the recorded footage.



supersonicwaffle said:


> I guess we have a misunderstanding. The point is there's nothing inherently wrong with YouTube or Facebook as a source for news gathering.


I would strongly disagree.  Youtube and Facebook have no method of filtering out tabloid garbage, and they'll often give it top billing just as much as they do with real news.  Plus you're at the mercy of your friend groups and liked videos in terms of what will be presented to you.  At best you'll get 1/4th of the complete picture when using either of these sites for news gathering.



supersonicwaffle said:


> So now that we've agreed it will be applied to political issues the point still stands that things aren't as black and white in that area. I will wait and see what the implementation looks like and the extent of its application.


Huh?  I don't remember agreeing to that.  The focus is on conspiracy and hoax videos entirely until they announce otherwise.  And while some of those conspiracy videos might be somewhat political in nature, they're still the easiest videos to disprove.


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## FAST6191 (Mar 13, 2019)

"get 1/4th of the complete picture"
As good as that? Might have to get a facebook account at this rate.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Some quotes were wrongly attributed to the boys, but for the most part all TV news did was run the recorded footage.



No, the problem was they showed a short out of context clip and claimed the kids got into the native american man's face and mocked him. This was on the back of said native american person, who is also known to lie about his military service, claiming that. Journalists did literally nothing to research and fact-check the story, that's the whole point MSM literally spread fake news. If they watched the whole (I believe 3 hour long) stream recording it was obvious the native american person approached the kids and got into their faces.

This misinformation also lead to high profile twitter users (musicians, movie producers, journalists, actors) calling for violence and doxxing.



> I would strongly disagree.  Youtube and Facebook have no method of filtering out tabloid garbage, and they'll often give it top billing just as much as they do with real news.  Plus you're at the mercy of your friend groups and liked videos in terms of what will be presented to you.  At best you'll get 1/4th of the complete picture when using either of these sites for news gathering.



TBH I can't really speak for Facebook as I don't use it but with regards to YouTube there's literally no difference if you watch a clip on TV or watch the same clip on YouTube. In the end it comes down to whose content you watch. I believe we're really arguing about the temptation of recommended videos of unreliable outlets / content creators?




> Huh?  I don't remember agreeing to that.  The focus is on conspiracy and hoax videos entirely until they announce otherwise.  And while some of those conspiracy videos might be somewhat political in nature, they're still the easiest videos to disprove.



I guess you should pay attention to what you quote and how you respond.


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> TBH I can't really speak for Facebook as I don't use it but with regards to YouTube there's literally no difference if you watch a clip on TV or watch the same clip on YouTube. In the end it comes down to whose content you watch. I believe we're really arguing about the temptation of recommended videos of unreliable outlets / content creators?


The problem is how Youtube chooses to curate its content, or rather its complete lack of curation.  You can have two videos listed right next to each other, one fake news and one real news, but without doing some research _outside_ of Youtube, there's no way to tell them apart in terms of credibility.  Your average user definitely isn't going to bother.



supersonicwaffle said:


> I guess you should pay attention to what you quote and how you respond.


I was agreeing to the localized rollout, not that the Pakistani-Indian issue was a political one.  That was an issue of false pedophilia/kidnapping allegations which led to lynchings.  Not very political at all in its nature.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> The problem is how Youtube chooses to curate its content, or rather its complete lack of curation.  You can have two videos listed right next to each other, one fake news and one real news, but without doing some research _outside_ of Youtube, there's no way to tell them apart in terms of credibility.  Your average user definitely isn't going to bother.
> 
> 
> I was agreeing to the localized rollout, not that the Pakistani-Indian issue was a political one.  That was an issue of false pedophilia/kidnapping allegations which led to lynchings.  Not very political at all in its nature.



Hmm, you scare the shit out of me. 
If an average user will not bother to check whether a story is factual you have much bigger problems in your country than social media algorithms.

Thanks for clarifying the Pakistani Indian thing.


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> Hmm, you scare the shit out of me.
> If an average user will not bother to check whether a story is factual you have much bigger problems in your country than social media algorithms.


I wish it was only my country, but the truth is that a majority of the world is used to instant gratification now thanks to social media.  Thus it's not only the US that's open to floods of disinformation.  For example, if anybody here believes that the Brexit campaign/vote was entirely organic and not influenced by foreign countries, I've got some oceanfront property in Colorado to sell you.


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## The Catboy (Mar 13, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Wait, who's organizing to resist Google?  They haven't always made the best decisions, but I'd still prefer if they were in charge of government right now as opposed to who we actually have.


Chances are incredibly high that his post was just another neo-Nazi dog whistle from a neo-Nazi member.


Glyptofane said:


> The same thing and "people" responsible for everything we are currently organizing to resist. Okay!


I know you are trying to be sneaky with your dog whistles, but you aren’t very good at it.


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## Xzi (Mar 13, 2019)

Lilith Valentine said:


> Chances are incredibly high that his post was just another neo-Nazi dog whistle from a neo-Nazi member.


Oh, appreciate the heads up.  In that case, he can try his hardest, but we all know what the number one political ideology is, now and forever:



Spoiler


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## the_randomizer (Mar 14, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Oh, appreciate the heads up.  In that case, he can try his hardest, but we all know what the number one political ideology is, now and forever:
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler



Many videos on YouTube just rub me the wrong way. I wished they were permanently erased from their servers.


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## FAST6191 (Mar 14, 2019)

the_randomizer said:


> Many videos on YouTube just rub me the wrong way. I wished they were permanently erased from their servers.


I find your constant decrying of the evils of censorship then being followed by such comments to be very odd.


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## erikas (Mar 14, 2019)

Does this feature go both ways? I hope it does.


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## Viri (Jul 29, 2020)

SG854 said:


> The Covington case was not a small issue. They were being harassed because of the fake news that they had to shut down their entire school for their safety because there was threats of violence. It was not a small issue at all.
> 
> If a person says go beat up this person on a video then yes shut them down.
> 
> ...


They got a cool 250mil from a settlement from WP. One of the editors of CNN violated the confidentiality agreement and now they're going to sue them again. lol


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## SG854 (Jul 29, 2020)

Viri said:


> They got a cool 250mil from a settlement from WP. One of the editors of CNN violated the confidentiality agreement and now they're going to sue them again. lol


Wow old post you replied to. Good, that's what WP gets for knowingly putting out false information to mislead to push their agenda.


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## Viri (Jul 29, 2020)

SG854 said:


> Wow old post you replied to. Good, that's what WP gets for knowingly putting out false information to mislead to push their agenda.


Yeah, it was the only post I could find via searching to reply to. lol

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-brian-stelter-covington-nicholas-sandmann
His lawyer sounds displeased at CNN.


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## PizzaBitez (Jul 29, 2020)

Interesting to hear anyway. I wonder what they are going to use as a fact checking source?


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## morvoran (Jul 29, 2020)

Fact-checking feature for "conspiracy theory/hoax videos" or AKA "conservative/republican voices, opinions, or facts that don't fit their agenda".  They are not fooling anybody but the pitiful left and the pedocrats.


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## UltraSUPRA (Jul 29, 2020)

Will they be censoring videos that claim the Coronavirus can spread ludicrously fast but to even know you have it you have to shove a Q-tip up your nose and into the back of your skull?


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## MFDC12 (Jul 29, 2020)

UltraSUPRA said:


> Will they be censoring videos that claim the Coronavirus can spread ludicrously fast but to even know you have it you have to shove a Q-tip up your nose and into the back of your skull?



Cancer and HIV you can have it and don't know until you get tests done, too. Respiratory infections often have similar symptoms so it's harder to pin point. But, as someone who had it and was hospitalized, it REALLY mimics pneumonia, it makes it really really difficult to breathe and you get a flu test, get checked for pneumonia, and a covid test. Not everyone gets this bad though, and then the point of the test is to prevent it spreading to others.


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## Noctosphere (Jul 29, 2020)

MFDC12 said:


> Cancer and HIV you can have it and don't know until you get tests done, too. Respiratory infections often have similar symptoms so it's harder to pin point. But, as someone who had it and was hospitalized, it REALLY mimics pneumonia, it makes it really really difficult to breathe and you get a flu test, get checked for pneumonia, and a covid test. Not everyone gets this bad though, and then the point of the test is to prevent it spreading to others.


Apparently, coronavirus can can be the cause of some kind of blockage in your blood circulatory system
I saw that on facebook, that a woman had to be amputated of her leg
I though it was another fake news until I saw a case in Quebec on news where some guy had similar problem with his lungs


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## MFDC12 (Jul 29, 2020)

Noctosphere said:


> Apparently, coronavirus can can be the cause of some kind of blockage in your blood circulatory system
> I saw that on facebook, that a woman had to be amputated of her leg
> I though it was another fake news until I saw a case in Quebec on news where some guy had similar problem with his lungs



Yeah covid definitely has a lot of different symptoms but the weird thing is they don't effect everyone the same way. I'm honestly pretty worried about the long term effects since it supposedly is really hard on the heart/lungs. I didn't stop coughing until 3 months after the infection, and I was short of breath for a week or two after I was given 'the clear' on my second test.


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