YouTube Alters Algorithm after Searches Turn Up Conspiracy Theories

Megalith

Megalith

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YouTube has changed its powerful search algorithm to promote videos from more mainstream news outlets in search results after people looking for details on the Las Vegas shooting were served up conspiracy theories and misinformation. In the days after the mass shooting, videos abounded on YouTube, some questioning whether the shooting occurred and others claiming law enforcement officials had deceived the public about what really happened.

Searching for "Las Vegas shooting" on YouTube led many people to these videos, some of which claimed it was a "false flag," a term conspiracy theorists use to refer to mass shootings they believe were staged by the government to promote gun control. Law enforcement officials say Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock acted alone, opening fire Sunday from the 32-second floor of the hotel. The attack killed 58 people and injured nearly 500. Paddock shot and killed himself as police tried to break into the room.
 
Man these companies like to self sensor. Its YouTube, who the hells goes on it to read news? Most of the fun of it is seeing the crazy video's they recommend next
 
Jim Kim said:
GOOD,
Google does not need to recycle fakenews from 4chan, reddit and fakebook.
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All of those sites serve as places for eye-witnesses to spread the truth (in the form of photos, videos) of the events that happened AS THEY HAPPEN, largely unfiltered by media/government. I had watched ~5 different videos of the vegas shooting before I saw a single clip on a network, while also listening to a police stream, while also reading about people discussing the type of modifications the guy made to his gun to produce the variable rpm auto fire seen/heard on said videos.
Those same sites also had people pointing towards the woman's ex-husband as the other reading suspect before it was revealed to be paddock, but the majority of people posting were waiting on confirmation before bringing out the torches.
For every negative you see in those websites, there are positives that justify keeping them.
 
The reason you are finding all this conspiracy theory stuff is because that is what people are actually saying. It is a reflection of our rejection of official narratives and asking each other directly what we think. It's not like ANYONE in the media or the government have given us any alternative answers. As far as the official narrative is concerned, this was just some guy with no particular reason and no particular lifestyle. Since when has that ever been true???? And the news media can blame themselves for a 24 hour news cycle mentality. The people want the truth now, because that is the expectation.

BTW, the reason conspiracy theories are popular is because like the lottery they do occasionally come true. The idea that the Saudi's most likely perpetrated 9/11 was present from the very beginning, then it turned out last year through the "28 pages" that in fact it was the Saudi's and the US government knew from day one.....and yet we still went and killed Saddam (Iraq). So this is why the "false flag" stuff gets legs.....there is truth sprinkled throughout history.
 
hJUCFwf.jpg
 
There is nothing wrong with your computer monitor. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission.
We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the
focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the rest of your life, sit quietly and we will control all that you see
and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your computer monitor You are about to participate in a great adventure.
You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – Al Gore's Internet
 
They are walking an awful thin line between curation and censorship. I hope they tread with care. I know there is a strong impulse to put pressure on social media sites to vet, and curate news like other Media outlets, (Newspaper,TV, ETC.) but the reality is that social media, and news media, are not the same thing. The fact that some people choose to get their news from non news sources (facebook, twitter etc.) is not the fault of those outlets it's the fault of those idiots who chose to treat those sites as if they were news media. If we start forcing social media sites to act like news organizations they will cease to be social media sites.
 
Social media sites have no legal obligation to provide accurate or truthful content so long as they are not the ones creating the content. This is legal concept is the backbone of Internet freedom. It's what allows individual users to say what they want and thwart pressure being put on the site that hosts it. If it was not for this legal concept, there would be no such thing as forums or user generated content or probably even search engines.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-under-communications-decency-act

PS, do not twist this into "aha! you can't post cp on forums!" There are laws against specific socially abhorrent behaviors. But in general the Internet is 1st Amendment friendly (too friendly??)
 
westrock2000 said:
Social media sites have no legal obligation to provide accurate or truthful content so long as they are not the ones creating the content. This is legal concept is the backbone of Internet freedom. It's what allows individual users to say what they want and thwart pressure being put on the site that hosts it. If it was not for this legal concept, there would be no such thing as forums or user generated content or probably even search engines.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-under-communications-decency-act

PS, do not twist this into "aha! you can't post cp on forums!" There are laws against specific socially abhorrent behaviors. But in general the Internet is 1st Amendment friendly (too friendly??)
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Yet sites that allow users to upload anything they want are taken down federally because of indipendant users uploading pirated content. It's not the site's fault, it's the user's, but the site still gets the book.
 
Too many people spread lying idiotic garbage that just gets in the way. And too many people believe it. While mainstream media and government can be wrong, you can nail them to a wall for their mistakes. Random youtuber #45345653, no you cant. Curate the shit away Google before the Government does it for you (which no one should want, self-regulation is the best route)
 
SighTurtle said:
Too many people spread lying idiotic garbage that just gets in the way. And too many people believe it. While mainstream media and government can be wrong, you can nail them to a wall for their mistakes. Random youtuber #45345653, no you cant. Curate the shit away Google before the Government does it for you (which no one should want, self-regulation is the best route)
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"mainstream media and government can be wrong", LOL!
I like how you destroy free speech in your argument.

"Curate the shit away Google before the Government does it for you"
Welcome to Communism 2.0
Quick, get in line, get in line!

SighTurtle you forgot to provide the link to the sign-up sheets.
 
funkydmunky said:
"mainstream media and government can be wrong", LOL!
I like how you destroy free speech in your argument.

"Curate the shit away Google before the Government does it for you"
Welcome to Communism 2.0
Quick, get in line, get in line!

SighTurtle you forgot to provide the link to the sign-up sheets.
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Government intervention is coming, Republican or Democrat, both are looking at Google and Facebook with wearily eyes already, thats why the algorithms are being fixed, they are trying to please Congress. Too late through.

That's what they get for letting shit spread. MSM, end of the day, they are part of the power structure, but those youtubers etc aren't so they get suppressed. Oh well.
 
westrock2000 said:
The reason you are finding all this conspiracy theory stuff is because that is what people are actually saying.
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But that doesnt make it true. The problem is there are a lot of Aunt Sally's and Uncle Bob's out there just blindly forwarding hysterically delusional conspiracies among their inner circle of friends and watching it grow. Conspiracy theories have always existed but prior to the new social media frenzy there was a natural order to things. Idiots on the west coast had no effective way to pollute the minds of impressionable idiots on the east coast. But now that every moron has the ability to discuss their moronic ideas with each other a problem arises. You legitimately have people who think 9/11 didnt even happen, as in no planes, no bombs, no buildings, nothing at all. The whole thing was some kind of illusion. This is fine if it's just a few random fucknuts, but those fucknuts have actually managed to poison the minds of other fucknuts and now it has spread.

The witness accounts of Vegas are rife with typical misunderstandings. Someone hears gunshot echoes and they assume it's another shooter. Someone sees a few dead people on the ground and they claim there were thousands killed. Someone just having a mental breakdown from the stress calls in a 911 report and says there are active shooters 5 miles away in their own hotel. Now all these fragile minds have an opportunity to mix their ideas and you get the cesspool mess of "facts" that has become facebook/youtube. This is peoples primary source of information, and it is unacceptable. Zero accountability, zero research, zero information. It's all just he said she said.
 
jpm100 said:
They should stick to fake news from CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews.
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yeah, they should, because CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews dont claim 9/11 was an inside job, the boston bombing didnt even happen, and that the vegas rampage involved multiple shooters. That already places them leagues ahead of whatever bullshit your facebook friends are memeing about.
 
nysmo said:
yeah, they should, because CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews dont claim 9/11 was an inside job, the boston bombing didnt even happen, and that the vegas rampage involved multiple shooters. That already places them leagues ahead of whatever bullshit your facebook friends are memeing about.
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But if they did, you'd believe if because they told you so.
 
nysmo said:
yeah, they should, because CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews dont claim 9/11 was an inside job, the boston bombing didnt even happen, and that the vegas rampage involved multiple shooters. That already places them leagues ahead of whatever bullshit your facebook friends are memeing about.
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You mean fake conspiracy theories like Russia and Piss-gate? And a corporation bullying a person that made a joke at their expense. Burying the Awan story.

They also bury things we know are true like Fixing the DNC primary which we know is true because people got fired for it. They also don't cover CNN feeding Hillary debate questions ahead of time which is true because more people got fired. Lying to the public that they couldn't read the wikileaks e-mails, legally, but they could and will interpret them for you. Burying the pay for play that was the Clinton Foundation. Which had to shutdown after the election because all the contributions dried up?

Yes, there's a lot of infowars grade shit out there. And under that umbrella they shutdown discussions on things they dislike because it doesn't fit their agenda. For all the infowars stuff, there's a good amount of well sourced and reasoned analysis and data aggregation that gets out which is uncomfortable for some in the ideologically biased media. I consider them better. They have biases too. But they are not lying about being objective and are actually less dangerous than the MSM from that fact alone.
 
nysmo said:
Conspiracy theories have always existed but prior to the new social media frenzy there was a natural order to things. Idiots on the west coast had no effective way to pollute the minds of impressionable idiots on the east coast.
Click to expand...

Hey man! I am deeply offended by your lack of empathy for my people! We CAN be heard from sea to shining sea!
:ROFLMAO::greyalien:


Coast_to_coast_am_logo.jpg
 
jpm100 said:
You mean fake conspiracy theories like Russia and Piss-gate? And a corporation bullying a person that made a joke at their expense. Burying the Awan story.

They also bury things we know are true like Fixing the DNC primary which we know is true because people got fired for it. They also don't cover CNN feeding Hillary debate questions ahead of time which is true because more people got fired. Lying to the public that they couldn't read the wikileaks e-mails, legally, but they could and will interpret them for you. Burying the pay for play that was the Clinton Foundation. Which had to shutdown after the election because all the contributions dried up?

Yes, there's a lot of infowars grade shit out there. And under that umbrella they shutdown discussions on things they dislike because it doesn't fit their agenda. For all the infowars stuff, there's a good amount of well sourced and reasoned analysis and data aggregation that gets out which is uncomfortable for some in the ideologically biased media. I consider them better. They have biases too. But they are not lying about being objective and are actually less dangerous than the MSM from that fact alone.
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coverups, lying, and general misdirection to save face are not in the same category as the wild fantasies that conspiritards come up with.
 
LigTasm said:
But if they did, you'd believe if because they told you so.
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Thats because they have a reasonable level of credibility. Your grandma forwarding garbage like chain mail on facebook does not.
 
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The problem i have with videos that sensationally promote false information is that large groups of people will believe that crap.

Especially at a time when very large groups of people are not happy with their current government. They feed on it.
 
We need search result neutrality laws!

It's problematic that google has made itself the de-facto authority on what people should think. Who is to say what is the conspiracy theory and what is real? Google? I don't think so. They prove time and time again that they cannot be trusted. Gender differences are real, yet they want to suppress it. Institutional racism and sexism however are fiction, yet they promote them as facts of life.
 
M76 said:
Who is to say what is the conspiracy theory and what is real?
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No one decides. One is fact, one is fantasy. You have people who think 9/11 was demolished with explosives, and then you have the rest of the informed world. All Google is attempting to do is make sure the facts come first, and the fantasy should you choose to amuse yourself can be located on page 9 of search results.
 
nysmo said:
No one decides. One is fact, one is fantasy. You have people who think 9/11 was demolished with explosives, and then you have the rest of the informed world. All Google is attempting to do is make sure the facts come first, and the fantasy should you choose to amuse yourself can be located on page 9 of search results.
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Youtube is not an authority on all facts. They too have an agenda, and if they pick and choose they WILL prefer their own biases and narrative over anything else.
 
My son loves to watch the "Your Welcome" song video from Moana. This video claims that Maui is responsible for pulling islands up from the seas, burying an eel's guts to get coconut trees, and making sure the wind blows, among other "natural phenomenon." Since this is not how the islands were formed, how coconut trees developed, or why the wind blows, perhaps Google should ban, or make it extremely difficult to find this video as well?
 
M76 said:
Youtube is not an authority on all facts. They too have an agenda, and if they pick and choose they WILL prefer their own biases and narrative over anything else.
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There is no agenda Google is pursuing when they dont want Vegas multiple shooter stories being the top list of anyone who does a basic search on the subject.
 
jpm100 said:
They have credibility because they told you so.
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lol no. Thats your facebook logic coming in to play. For instance, I was just on break sitting outside next to a table of 4 women clucking like hens about their vegas conspiracies just now, seriously. They were saying "mmm hmm! How dat man carry up 800 lbs of equipment to his hotel room? Aint no way! And then he somehow broke out them windows? WITH WHAT? How dat even possible? I tell you man you cant trust nuttin' on the news, they all lyin!" Just a complete lack of critical thinking whatsoever. These bitches will then go post this shit on facebook, which will make the rounds within their inner circle of friends, and then another 10-20 people become dumber. Stupidity is a virus.

The problem with conspiracies is that the ignorant secretly know theyre ignorant, so when they can latch on to something like a conspiracy it makes them feel smart, like they're "in the know" and have insider information. Something they finally have one up on someone.
 
nysmo said:
There is no agenda Google is pursuing when they dont want Vegas multiple shooter stories being the top list of anyone who does a basic search on the subject.
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Well it seems to me this is not for just this one case, but they generally going to promote the mainstream narrative. And while in this case it might be the correct that's far from being an universal rule.

Maybe it should be opt out. The people who are gullible enough to fall for fake news, and with no ability to detect bullshit, are too dumb to find the opt out option anyway.
 
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