YouTube’s Loaded With EV Disinformation

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 467 points –
YouTube's Loaded With EV Disinformation - CleanTechnica
cleantechnica.com

YouTube’s Loaded With EV Disinformation::When it comes to articles on a website like CleanTechnica, there are two kinds of articles. First, there are the ... [continued]

167

You are viewing a single comment

YouTube’s loaded with disinformation about everything. Especially egregious are the awful ads YouTube runs about scammy health cures and devices.

Which is why we need downvote buttons by default for those videos. People say it's unnecessary, but you at least have to let the upvotes go to zero if there are that many downvotes.

Only YouTube says downvotes are unnecessary, users want them back and never wanted them removed.

We need laws that make it illegal to disinform people for profit.

There are, and have been, but Republicans constantly work to repeal them, calling it 'deregulation'.

Businesses would sell you cyanide and call it a weight-loss miracle cure if the laws didn't prevent it.

"Use this eye mask to protect you from 5g while you sleep" yes, such a thing existed, and it was removed from amazon for putting out harmful radiation.

Not just ads, but actual content creators themselves. If a channel has someone calling themselves "Dr." and giving out medical advice, 99% they are a chiropractor.

And don't forget that mr Beast is gifting all his subscribers 100$ if you just send a pic of your social security card

YouTube is filled with whatever people fill it with. Some of it is misinformation, some of it is (obviously) super valuable and helpful information. It is not YTs job or responsibility to be the arbiter of truth.

Why do you believe that? And are you ok with the consequences of that? What's your solution?

Are you okay with tech oligopolies being the arbiters of truth? You can't see how that might be problematic!?

What if Twitter started removing all "disinformation" from their platform? Would you be okay with the consequences of that?

You can't see how that might be problematic!?

Stop being condescending. I asked an open question to give you ample opportunity to elaborate without presumption.

We're talking about removing misinformation and flat out lies, not "being the arbiters of truth" as if someone where to control a narrative from behind the curtain. I know the Fediverse gets its underwear pretty wet on that one and it's sometimes absurd to the point of being obnoxious.

Debunking has been a exercise on the internet for a long time and there are plenty of third parties that are quite reliable. YouTube already incorporates that to a degree and it's not a foreign concept. There is plenty of popular and blatant material on there that could easily be subject to review without going to ridiculously extreme scrutiny that paralyzes all our thoughts and actions.

We're talking about removing misinformation and flat out lies, not "being the arbiters of truth"

...they're the same thing.

there are plenty of third parties that are quite reliable.

It's already been proven several times that they're often not.

There's clearly a difference, no need to be obtuse.

Prove it.

I agree with tech oligarchs should not be arbiters of truth. But I'm concerned about them using that power to sensor critics. Like if a whistle blower called out a Twitter manager as a pedophile. What's stopping Twitter from using it's arbiter of truth power to convince everyone that information is false. But I also recognize that there are more commonly scammers who make false claims on Twitter and not getting them taken down will result in potential harm to random people. I think there should be a third party fact checking system but then you have the same problem of potential bad actors abusing systems to shift information to profit themselves. So I guess the best I can think of right now is a flagging system. Ultimately Im growing more and more to think the rute of the misinformation problem is that humanity is just getting worse and worse. We are leaving in a word with a population of good people decreasing while caluss people who just want take what they can become more common. We need more good people and not good as in you believe the right thing but good as in you believe what you believe that sertan things are bad and others are good. Not just blindly believing one group is ideal and can do no wrong even when they contradict themselves. Just look at our partys what does it mean to be Republican and what does it mean to be Democrat. They both exist to contradict the other. There is no mission accomplished on ether side, only we won this battle, onto the next one.

I would have agreed upon that only if youtube didn't shove videos like these down everyone's throat if you create a new account, you would get videos like these pretty easily

That's because videos like these are exploiting the algorithm. That's why there are so many.