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YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#51

Post by acd »

My favorite YouTube is the rainbow conspiracy it appears the person is not aware of the color spectrum.

That said filter bubbles and ai feeding us more what we “want” is probably increasing conspiracy theories and making us less tolerant of different views. There has been little talk of the morality of ai algorithms.

Personally I was recommended “hot” dating sites advertisement when having relationship issues. Not what I needed but surely what most likely pays the best. The issue is lack of ai moral or for that sake profit first. Obectivivly the ai was right but morally not I am a parent. Ads probably should be regulated at least you should be able to say no to ai algorithm and behavioral psychologist maximizing profit for private companies.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#52

Post by duxup »

Ambroos wrote: post #27

There's been an uptick in conspiracy theories lately, I kinda blame the whole "mainstream media lies" movement. Some people are starting to believe that if almost everyone believes something, it has to be a conspiracy. My favourite one right now is "5G is bad and will kill us all and microwave birds". There is not a single article on 5G without the Facebook comments being full of people shouting about the extreme dan…

It's very attractive in an unpredictable world if you're feeling vulnerable, scared, disenfranchised. Someone out there has the answer, and oh man it's great because someone's answer are these things I'm inclined to belive and reinforces / validates my values.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#53

Post by alexandercrohde »

neaden wrote: post #30
alexandercrohde wrote: post #15

Our society is premised on the idea of free exchange of ideas. Some will freely choose to think/do/believe things we find insane (some cults/religions/jobs). The premise of this article is that these videos are going to brainwash/hypnotize poor fools into believing crazy things. Newspapers need to win not be being the only voice in the room, but by being the most relevant, clear, researched, reliable, unbiased voice…

Why do you think that people will automatically listen to the most relevant, clear, researched, reliable, unbiased voice? Lots of people end up listening to loud, angry, biased voices that say a lot of bullshit. We see this with things like the anti-Vax movement.

The premise of our society is that it's not the law's job to make sure everybody only believes true things. That's a rather Orwellian idea.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#54

Post by daxorid »

Ambroos wrote: post #27

There's been an uptick in conspiracy theories lately, I kinda blame the whole "mainstream media lies" movement. Some people are starting to believe that if almost everyone believes something, it has to be a conspiracy. My favourite one right now is "5G is bad and will kill us all and microwave birds". There is not a single article on 5G without the Facebook comments being full of people shouting about the extreme dan…

Your premise is reasonable, but the "mainstream media lies" movement is rooted firmly in reality, so root cause analysis points elsewhere.

From the Russian collusion narrative, to the Avenatti client claims, to the Covington school coverage, to the recent Jesse Smolett coverage. Western media increasingly does not bother to check facts before running with stories.

It's fair to blame the "msm lies movement", but that movement itself has a root cause.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#55

Post by fzeroracer »

duxup wrote: post #19
srkmno wrote: post #3

Conspiracy theories are fiction which is protected speech, it's interesting how newspapers are thumbing their noses at the first amendment and smearing competitors who also enjoy it's protection as perhaps they sense an opportunity at regaining gatekeeper status. It also can be said that "conspiracy theories" are part of internet culture as no one really believes the earth is flat, it's just attention seeking behavio…

> it's interesting how newspapers are thumbing their noses at the first amendment and smearing competitors who also enjoy it's protection as they perhaps sense an opportunity at regaining gatekeeper status. Isn't that the same stuff conspiracy theorists always say when someone points out their theory is BS?

Yes, that's the exact same line of argument I see from people touting inane conspiracy theories.

Unfortunately we see a lot of conspiracy theories have very real and damaging effects on people, often not those indulging in it. Just look at the idiot that attempted to burn down that pizza place because of pizzagate or how many people harassing families of school shooting victims because they believe they're all government orchestrated tragedies.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#56

Post by bargl »

srkmno wrote: post #50
bargl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible to say what people do or don't believe, but I worked with a guy who would argue the earth was flat. His massive knowledge into the conspiracies and complete lack of knowledge about physics was a constant issue. Oh, we worked on a project computing link budgets for geo stationary communication satellites. So the company made all of their money off of satellites, and he could completely disconnect from…

Supposing that's true where's the harm there? why should we restrict "speech" because of your colleague's beliefs?

I am in no way shape or form advocating for restricting speech. I speaking strictly to whether or not he believes it.

I believe he believes it. But it's impossible for me to know.

I make no assertion other than that.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#57

Post by JoeAltmaier »

brazzy wrote: post #33
srkmno wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> first off, YouTube is a private corporation So is the new york times. > not subject to free-speech laws Yes it is, same as the new york times.

Nope. Please inform yourself what "free-speech" means.

And be nuanced. Freedom of speech is an American ideal, and a Constitutional Amendment.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#58

Post by doktrin »

duxup wrote: post #9

In the early days of the internet I thought all this "information" being available / soon to be available as a positive. I had no idea what the negatives would be at that point, let alone the scale.

I don't personally know (or know of) anyone who truly saw this coming 20+ years ago. It's a bit humbling to have been blindsided so thoroughly.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#59

Post by cameldrv »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #15

Our society is premised on the idea of free exchange of ideas. Some will freely choose to think/do/believe things we find insane (some cults/religions/jobs). The premise of this article is that these videos are going to brainwash/hypnotize poor fools into believing crazy things. Newspapers need to win not be being the only voice in the room, but by being the most relevant, clear, researched, reliable, unbiased voice…

Yes, but the only way to keep that freedom is to use it responsibly. In democracy, you're entrusting the people with control of the government. This is why we have public education, to teach people our principles and responsible ways to exercise their freedom. Some people will find their own way and go outside the lines of respectability, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Society depends on most people not doing this though. Take guns for example. We have very permissive gun laws, which is nice as long as people don't use them to shoot up schools for example.

It used to be that while we had free speech, publishing companies had standards of respectability. Newspapers weren't going to print smut even if it would sell more papers for example.

The problem with YouTube is that it's basically a newspaper editor with no ethics, it only cares about selling papers/maximizing on screen time. My son has recently been into watching videos of the moon landings/the lunar rover. If I leave YouTube running, the recommender will automatically start playing moon hoax conspiracy videos. What's worse is that it uses this same asinine recommender algorithm that tries to get me to watch as much YouTube as possible even though I pay them $18 a month. Given that they already have my money and aren't showing me ads, I would appreciate it if the recommender had my best interests at heart rather than just showing me videos that an algorithm thinks will addict me.

Re: YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?

#60

Post by [deleted] »

srkmno wrote: post #43
tines wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first amendment is about protecting speech from the government, and since the Ny Times isn’t a government entity, the right to free speech doesn’t pertain.

The nytimes' publishings are protected by the first amendment and so is youtube's.

[deleted]
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