Wikipedia to Curb Conspiracy Theories

IMAGE: Natural News

By Lucas Shaw and Mark Bergen | 13 March 2018

BLOOMBERG — YouTube will introduce a new tool to combat online conspiracy theories in the coming weeks, the latest effort from Google’s video site to halt the spread of misinformation.

Videos propagating conspiracy theories about events, like the moon landing, will now be accompanied by text from Wikipedia providing facts that counter the theory, Susan Wojcicki, chief executive officer of YouTube, said on Wednesday.

“Our goal is to start with a list of conspiracies around the internet where there’s a lot of active discussion,” she said at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday.

Videos about “widely accepted events” will include “information cues” — a text box that links to third-party sources including Wikipedia, according to a YouTube spokeswoman. “These features will be rolling out in the coming months,” the spokeswoman wrote in an email. […]

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