【】

Even withoutAlex Jones, harmful conspiracy theory videos were running rampant on YouTube. Now, the company says it’s going to take action.
In a blog postpublished on Friday, YouTube said it would be making changes to its recommendations algorithm to explicitly deal with conspiracy theory videos. The company says the update will reduce the suggestion of “borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways.”
YouTube clarified what kind of videos fit that description by providing three examples: “videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”
The company clarified that this content doesn’t necessarily violate its community guidelines. This means that while the content may still exist on YouTube, the site’s algorithm will omit these videos from being recommended to its users.
In order to deal with this sort of problematic content, YouTube says it relies on “a combination of machine learning and real people.” Human evaluators and experts will train the recommendation system to evaluate these videos. At first, the changes will only be visible on a small number of videos in the U.S.
YouTube says that overall less than 1 percent of videos will be affected by this change. But, with the platform’s massive video archive and hundreds of hoursof new content being uploaded per minute, that still amounts to a lot of videos.
SEE ALSO:YouTube rolls out ban on dangerous challenges and pranksThe video site, which is the second most trafficked website in the world, according to Alexa, has longbeen criticizedfor its recommendation engine. The company actually did make changesin an attempt to combat misinformation. For example, YouTube adjusted its search algorithm to center trusted news sources for breaking news queriesin September.
YouTube recommendations continued to be a problem, however.
The Washington Postrecently discovered hateful content, as well as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg health conspiracies, being recommended on YouTube. Motherboard reportedon a 9/11 newscast that was being suggested to YouTube users en masse last week.
Just yesterday, BuzzFeed News published an investigationinto YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. BuzzFeed found that YouTube would eventually recommend conspiracy theory and hate videos from far-right commentators for the most basic of current events searches.
A Pew studypublished in November found that an increasing number of Americans are researching topics on YouTube and going to the service for news. The study also found that the site’s recommendation engine plays a large role in what videos its users consume.
Omitting flat Earthers, 9/11 truthers, and bogus MDs from YouTube recommendations would be a big step toward fixing one of the platform’s many problems.
Featured Video For You
YouTube bans dangerous pranks
TopicsYouTube
相关文章
Sound the alarms: Simone Biles finally met Zac Efron
Is there anything Simone Biles can't do?The unstoppable gymnast just won her fifth medal of the Rio2025-04-24Happy Unicorn Day but narwhals are cooler and actually exist
Unicorns pranced all over Twitter Sunday as users celebrated an imaginary holiday for an imaginary c2025-04-24We became scientists to help the world. Now we need to take to the streets.
Neither of us imagined that getting a Ph.D. in science would turn us into climate activists, too.As2025-04-24Six reasons Mastodon won't survive
William Shatner couldn't find me on Mastodon.This was a problem.Tweet may have been deletedMastodon2025-04-24Tyler, the Creator helped Frank Ocean celebrate 'Blonde' release in a delicious way
The release of Frank Ocean's 。 Blonde 。is a cause for celebration to the fans who waited four years fo2025-04-24The Trump administration has 10 important things to learn from teens who do Model UN
Historically, students who participate in Model United Nations have a certain reputation: They're in2025-04-24
最新评论