New from @YouTube - CEO Susan Wojciki announces a feature to fight conspiracy theories w/ related links to news, Wikipedia #sxswpic.twitter.com/sLtjdQNqbu
— Maureen Fitzgerald (@movandy) March 13, 2018
YouTube will use Wikipedia to provide “facts” on conspiracy videos
During an interview at South by Southwest in Austin, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said the company would begin to provide “information cues” alongside videos that promote false or misleading information.
Here’s Wojcicki on the subject, as quoted by The Verge: “When there are videos that are focused around something that’s a conspiracy — and we’re using a list of well-known internet conspiracies from Wikipedia — then we will show a companion unit of information from Wikipedia showing that here is information about the event.”
She then clarified that the company wasn’t interested in delivering news as a practice.
.@SusanWojcicki "If there is an important news event we want to be delivering the right information."
— Ryan Mac (@RMac18) March 13, 2018
Minutes later she says, "We are not a news organization."
Sure, because outsourcing facts to Wikipedia won’t cause any problems. Or, see below.