In an open letter published on January 12, 2022 on Poynter, a collective of 80 “Fact-checkers” of the whole world denounce disinformation on YouTube. They ask the platform to take drastic measures to fight against the false information which is, it seems, more and more numerous on the platform.
YouTube, the main driver of disinformation?
A cry of alarm, for get YouTube to act quickly. NGOs believe that the YouTube video platform has become “One of the main drivers of disinformation in the world”. What to arouse a “Great concern” for the community of “Fact-checkers”. To illustrate their point, the protagonists take several examples. In Brazil, for example, YouTube has been used to amplify hate speech against minority groups, reaching tens of thousands of users. In Taiwan, the last election was marred by unfounded accusations of fraud. They specify that “The examples are too numerous to be counted all”.
China wants oversight over the algorithms of its tech giants
According to the 80 organizations of “Fact-checking”, the whole world witnessed the consequences of disinformation “When a violent mob stormed the US Capitol last year”. At the time, several analysts wondered about the role that social networks could have played in this event. Finally, Twitter had deleted 70,000 accounts linked to the QAnon movement after the capture of the Capitol. Regarding the US election, YouTube videos supporting the story of the “Fraud” have been watched over 33 million times…
The 80 signatories ask the platform to develop a precise roadmap to fight against this phenomenon
In their letter, the NGOs address directly to Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube. They believe that the platform owned by Google is not making enough effort to implement policies that tackle the problem of disinformation. If videos are indeed deleted (130,000 recently about Covid-19 according to the social network), the “Fact-checkers” think this is not enough. They call on YouTube to take effective action against disinformation and “To develop a roadmap of interventions on policies and products to improve the information ecosystem”.
To these accusations, Elena Hernandez, spokesperson for YouTube, replies that the “Fact-checking is one piece of a larger puzzle aimed at tackling the spread of disinformation”. Taking the subject of Covid-19 as an example, the social network explains that it is sometimes not so easy to differentiate real information from false. Moderators are based on an evolving medical consensus day by day. In the third quarter of 2021, YouTube still deleted 6.2 million videos on its platform.