6 ms·

YouTube launches new page that only shows videos from "authoritative" sources

daoboy 3y ago
Many of the "authoritative" sources the algorithm is drawing from have published incorrect information as recently as yesterday.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  This seems like a strong assertion. Would you share your source for it?
  - junofan 3y ago
    Come on, let’s not stir the pot. Probably the hospital thing.
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      I genuinely don't know. I haven't gotten news from any of the exampled sources recently - so I don't know what's being alleged. I see other comments referencing the hospital bombing so I can maybe piece it together from that. I've plenty of closer crisis to capture my attention as well.
  - ReptileMan 3y ago
    Everyone that reported the bombing in Gaza of the hospital with 500 dead.
    - 542458 3y ago
      Reuters, Sky, PBS, CBS, etc. don't make any specific accusations about who was responsible in any articles I could find - they all report both accusations for who was responsible.
      - bdw5204 3y ago
        Their original reporting on Tuesday was just the Hamas claims, typically attributed to either the "Gaza Health Ministry" or "Palestinian Health Ministry" rather than "Hamas".
      - hersko 3y ago
        They all updated their articles. They initially published a Hamas talking point (i.e an outright lie) with no verification or questions, as if it were fact.
      - jasonlotito 3y ago
        This is, unfortunately, a case of people misreading and misunderstanding journalistic standards that have been around for a long time. CFN Headline: "So and so did X, claims Y" is seen as CFN making the claim that so and so did X. I see this time and time again, and it's effectively people not even reading the complete headline. While I don't blame the journalists for these headlines (people aren't even reading the headlines and instead interpreting them the way they want), I do wonder if there is a better solution. And I know someone is going to come in and claim "Only put facts in the headline" or something like that, and these are generally fact-based headlines. Someone of interest made a claim, so going completely fact-based isn't going to help, because that happens already and people get confused.
        colejohnson66 3y ago
        It's standard journalistic practice to put "claims X" at the end of the headline. The "action" needs to be at the front of the headline to grab attention. It's not necessarily wrong to do so, but it could easily be avoided by titling as "Y claims So And So did X". The real issue is people not even reading the stories and only taking headlines as gospel. A bit of forgetfulness and telephone (the game) later and "So and so did X, Y claims" turns into "So and so did X".
        jasonlotito 3y ago
        Yeah, I was familiar with the practice to put "claims X" at the end, I just didn't make that clear. My question really revolves around: should that be changed? I wonder if this is a result of limited-character lengths on aggregators. It's easy to chop the end off of a headline and have it still make sense. Couple that with people reading only the first part of the headline and possibly ignoring the second part. I think your suggestion moving to attribution to the front would be helpful for headlines online. Maybe even have the title of the page have the attribution prepended to handle scrapers.
- 542458 3y ago
  I think there’s a pretty big difference between something like the AP or Reuters that takes accuracy seriously, and many of the organizations that game the YouTube algorithm and just publish whatever gets the most engagement to drive themselves to the front page. For example, when the AP caught reporter Christopher Newton fabricating sources, they fired him and immediately conduced a review of everything he had written for them, issuing retractions or corrections as appropriate.
  - Synaesthesia 3y ago
    Some of the biggest lies are by omission.
    - baz00 3y ago
      That's the BBC's policy. They either don't run stories or run them when attention is off the issue where they don't get ranked highly.
  - Prickle 3y ago
    Agreed. Back during the Dave chappel Netflix protest, an AP photographer got caught writing false defamatory captions on some of the photos. They didn't issue a correction, but they did edit the photo caption to reflect reality. I would definitely prefer the AP over many other sources.
  - ysavir 3y ago
    Wasn't that 20 years ago? Do they maintain the same integrity and diligence in the modern click-oriented age?
  - mynameishere 3y ago
    When they find some lone wolf breaking the rules, sure they'll punish him. But when they act collectively, there is rarely a correction or (ha ha) compunction. The Russiagate hoax (ie, "Trump is a Russian agent") should have called for widespread reform of the entire media. I can't believe there is a single person who can take CNN/NY Times/LA Times/etc seriously at this point. But when it is 95 percent of the group committing the same outrage, I doubt any of them feel particularly guilty. Years before was the even-worse "Weapons of Mass Destruction" propaganda campaign. Maybe you're too young to remember it, but that was a whopper.
- dmead 3y ago
  many of the comments in this thread have been found to be unsubstantiated.
- orangepurple 3y ago
  Dr. Eric Berg DC describes this specific YouTube phenomenon as it pertains to health information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETonDtzkETw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETonDtzkETw
  - tspng 3y ago
    I very strongly would not take any advice from a chiropractor and scientologist who gives health advice and sells his own products / courses on Youtube.
  - snakeyjake 3y ago
    Chiropractors are as qualified to speak on medical matters as I am. I am 100% not qualified to speak on medical matters. YouTube would be completely justified in removing any content I create regarding diseases, treatments, or related matters. The fact that it is not common knowledge that chiropractors are actual, literal, charlatans is incomprehensible to me. edit: on further reflection I am probably somewhat more qualified than chiropractors to analyze and determine the validity of medical direction based on its source because the entire foundation of their profession is false and I know this whereas they do not.
- DonaldTruck 3y ago
  [flagged]
nvm0n2 3y ago
This is the same failed strategy that caused Google Video to lose to YouTube. GV bet hard that people would only want to watch video from big legacy content houses like Disney and barely cared about "UGC" as they called it back then (user generated content, now just known as content). They thought it was a joke. YouTube smoked them by embracing the UGC but somehow Susan Wojcicki never learns. It's incredible that Google put her in charge after the GV fiasco and left her there so long, given she seems psychologically incapable of embracing the bazaar-like nature of what made YouTube successful in the first place. If it were up to her, internet video would be a recreation of the 1970s TV environment. A handful of channels broadcasting worthy and civilized (but incorrect) things.
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago
  Google's search product and YouTube's algorithm have both been completely gutted for this need to control the sources and what people see down to being shadows of their former usefulness. Now we could say this is a good thing because there's less radicalization and what many consider misinformation. But I think the clear difference in usefulness wont result in those people not seeing that information but more an eventual move away from the Google services rendering the control useless because the next most viable services will likely be under Chinese control anyway. Yandex already offers a far superior image search to Google, Tiktok video search is preferred by young people over Google text search.
- js8 3y ago
  I agree with most of what you wrote, except: > handful of channels broadcasting worthy and civilized Maybe that's different for public TV (like BBC), but I found lot more interesting and civilized content on YT than in commercial TV. Commercial TV execs have this elitist notion that common people are stupid and are not interested in any sort of intellectual content.
jsnell 3y ago
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37928151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37928151
haunter 3y ago
On the other hand I never understood why foreign state propaganda is allowed on Youtube? What's the appeal allowing the chinese state channels (CGTN, Global Times, CCTV) to broadcast there?
- conradfr 3y ago
  They are not foreign to everyone.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    YouTube is blocked in China.
- tivert 3y ago
  IIRC, CCTV is literally all Chinese domestic television. So if it was blocked, it would be much harder to watch things like the Chinese New Year Gala. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_New_Year%27s_Gala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_New_Year%27s_Gala
- palmfacehn 3y ago
  I believe they removed Russia Today and PressTV from YouTube. CGTN is still allowed for whatever reason.
- itishappy 3y ago
  I like having something to compare my US state propaganda against.
- data_monkey 3y ago
  What's the appeal of allowing US state propaganda?
WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
* Initial participants will be 20 organizations across 10 countries, selected for having a notable long-form video presence on YouTube but that have yet to embrace short-form news formats. (Other media companies, like ESPN, have already leaned into Shorts.)* The phrasing is a bit awkward for me. I get the part that YT is looking for channels that are more substance and less blurb. That seems pretty okay. "Have Yet To Embrace Short-Form" is a weird; it seems to imply that only that news orgs who will eventually do short-form are being considered. I assume that's not what they meant. Also that ESPN isn't considered - because it's short-forming, not because it's a sportsball channel. That's an oddly specific choice; it could imply a view that sports reporting is as equally important as critical news. Again, that might not be what this article meant.
- palmfacehn 3y ago
  They're really pushing this shorts thing in a failed attempt to compete with TickTok. For me the format is totally inane. Vertical video doesn't make sense for desktop. I imagine most people here are not looking for soundbite news. News networks have been pushing that for decades and are consistently loosing viewers.
leetgirl83 3y ago
These authoritative sources refuse to cover the Covid lab leak theory fairly. Including even prestigious journals like Science and Nature
- userinanother 3y ago
  That’s less of an issue than failing to properly describe COVID as airborne and spreading misinformation about the effectiveness of handwashing on COVID transmission
- mandmandam 3y ago
  The Lancet paper which "justified" all that was pretty clearly bullshit from the start, had anyone actually read it. Then it came out that basically everyone involved had massive conflicts of interest. Then it came out that scientists were being pressured by Fauci and other higher ups to denounce the lableak story. Then it came out that Facebook, Twitter, and others conspired - literally - with government to block 100% true information which was inconvenient to the narrative. ... And it's still seen by many as a "conspiracy theory", and there's still been no accountability. None. I was flagged for posting the above information here twice a couple days ago, even after adding sources. Now they want to pull this shit? Mere days after the breathless 'beheaded babies' claim? What in the world did we do to deserve this media.
rickdeckard 3y ago
Interesting decision. Regardless of the selection quality, the move indirectly flags everything else on YouTube as "Entertainment"...
blah_why_not 3y ago
[dead]
palmfacehn 3y ago
It wasn't long ago that many of the official US news outlets consistently had their videos severely vote ratioed. YouTube then removed the dislike count, allegedly to protect small creators from being brigaded. The puzzling part of that explanation was in their addendum, "creators can still view the dislike count" The war on "disinformation" marches on. I doubt many skeptics will be won over by this latest tactic. Those with establishment biases can already choose their favored outlets. This raises the obvious questions: Who is this feature aimed at? Will it become mandatory? Will content be further restricted on the basis of truthiness?
megous 3y ago
It's really hard to find anything uploaded by regular people/primary sources ever since youtube became the "news" source aggregator. They can rename it newstube for all I care. This makes it mostly worthless to me, when most news are simply regurgitated from somewhere else anyway and this aggregation just makes the search results insanely repetitive and it's impossible to scroll down to something else but this type of content. It's only escapable by searching by upload time, but then you lose any sorting by relevancy among the non-news content. If anything I'd like a non-news filter. :) News are already available from better, more focused websites.
seydor 3y ago
youtube cracking down on adblockers is going to be a big boost for demonetized ads. no ads no adblocker needed
skymast 3y ago
[dead]
- firebat45 3y ago
  Linking to Breitbart doesn't do a lot for the credibility of your claim.
screye 3y ago
Don't need to go too far to see how this is a bad idea. In light of last yesterday's malicious reporting by the likes of NYT, BBC and Al Jazeera, can any outlet claim to be authoritative ? > In a sample GIF provided, that included outlets like the Associated Press, Sky News, PBS News Hour, ABC News, and CBS Evening News. When the primary first sources themselves have been poisoned, these secondary source media houses might as well be completely useless.
- jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
  Professional news outlets will redact stories if they are deemed to be untrue most of the time, whereas the clickbait vlog-spam that overruns YouTube will definitely not do that. YouTube has a severe disinformation problem, so it's better to have this than what has been happening for years. Give them compliments for at least _trying_ to solve the problem
  - screye 3y ago
    The alternative to professional new outlets is not a free for all. It is to establish granular sources whose reputations hinge on their ability to give multiple sides and report known facts instead of conjecture. NYT can't be held accountable, because they are 1000s of people under a big-tent; by-lines are hidden in small script. People like Derek Lowe, Stratchery, Sinocism and similar high-profile commentators/youtubers can be held accountable. If something goes wrong, it is their fault, and their fault only. Youtube should embrace what its biggest strength is : granular individualized rewards. Individuals whose rigor outstrips that of major organizations should be promoted far more than traditional media houses. Afterall, they're what makes Youtube unique. If nerds playing geoguesser are better at satellite intelligence and triaging than NYT, then so be it. Geoguesser dude gets my trust.
    - jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
      > The alternative to professional new outlets is not a free for all. It is to establish granular sources whose reputations hinge on their ability to give multiple sides and report known facts instead of conjecture. Many of these outlets on the internet clearly do not agree with this principle. CNN's CEO recently said only 10% of the early Gaza footage they reviewed was usable and the rest was often disinformation garbage. Plenty of these sources you allude to posted the garbage as fact and did not redact.
nottorp 3y ago
They say AI selected. So engagement driven instead of information driven as their front page?
speak_plainly 3y ago
As bad as most news is (leaning hard on narratives, engaging in propaganda, etc.), it's still light-years better than the YouTube equivalents. YouTube is in a tough situation. Competition from TikTok and their paranoia about 'safety' and 'misinformation' is going to be its undoing. It's already become a shadow of its former self unfortunately.
renegat0x0 3y ago
Attempts were made: 1) to provide "disinformation governance board" 2) to provide "oversight boards" 3) to provide fact checkers, which Facebook agreed were 'just an opinion' On the other hands there has been rumors about Russia, China spreading misinformation. Government tries to limit free speech to fight disinformation, but in reality taking control over free speech. We will see how it ends. Once you start controlling the narrative, there is no ending.
kornhole 3y ago
I would love to see the inverse: page of nonauthoritative sources. The authorities release fake news in a way that makes it sound legit. I would rather follow the independent sources with the understanding that they will conflict and I will be able to evaluate the many different points of view to develop my understanding. The best place for anti-authoritarian sources now seems to be Rumble.

Many of the "authoritative" sources the algorithm is drawing from have published incorrect information as recently as yesterday.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
This seems like a strong assertion. Would you share your source for it?
- junofan 3y ago
  Come on, let’s not stir the pot. Probably the hospital thing.
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    I genuinely don't know. I haven't gotten news from any of the exampled sources recently - so I don't know what's being alleged. I see other comments referencing the hospital bombing so I can maybe piece it together from that. I've plenty of closer crisis to capture my attention as well.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  Everyone that reported the bombing in Gaza of the hospital with 500 dead.
  - 542458 3y ago
    Reuters, Sky, PBS, CBS, etc. don't make any specific accusations about who was responsible in any articles I could find - they all report both accusations for who was responsible.
    - bdw5204 3y ago
      Their original reporting on Tuesday was just the Hamas claims, typically attributed to either the "Gaza Health Ministry" or "Palestinian Health Ministry" rather than "Hamas".
    - hersko 3y ago
      They all updated their articles. They initially published a Hamas talking point (i.e an outright lie) with no verification or questions, as if it were fact.
    - jasonlotito 3y ago
      This is, unfortunately, a case of people misreading and misunderstanding journalistic standards that have been around for a long time. CFN Headline: "So and so did X, claims Y" is seen as CFN making the claim that so and so did X. I see this time and time again, and it's effectively people not even reading the complete headline. While I don't blame the journalists for these headlines (people aren't even reading the headlines and instead interpreting them the way they want), I do wonder if there is a better solution. And I know someone is going to come in and claim "Only put facts in the headline" or something like that, and these are generally fact-based headlines. Someone of interest made a claim, so going completely fact-based isn't going to help, because that happens already and people get confused.
      - colejohnson66 3y ago
        It's standard journalistic practice to put "claims X" at the end of the headline. The "action" needs to be at the front of the headline to grab attention. It's not necessarily wrong to do so, but it could easily be avoided by titling as "Y claims So And So did X". The real issue is people not even reading the stories and only taking headlines as gospel. A bit of forgetfulness and telephone (the game) later and "So and so did X, Y claims" turns into "So and so did X".
        jasonlotito 3y ago
        Yeah, I was familiar with the practice to put "claims X" at the end, I just didn't make that clear. My question really revolves around: should that be changed? I wonder if this is a result of limited-character lengths on aggregators. It's easy to chop the end off of a headline and have it still make sense. Couple that with people reading only the first part of the headline and possibly ignoring the second part. I think your suggestion moving to attribution to the front would be helpful for headlines online. Maybe even have the title of the page have the attribution prepended to handle scrapers.
542458 3y ago
I think there’s a pretty big difference between something like the AP or Reuters that takes accuracy seriously, and many of the organizations that game the YouTube algorithm and just publish whatever gets the most engagement to drive themselves to the front page. For example, when the AP caught reporter Christopher Newton fabricating sources, they fired him and immediately conduced a review of everything he had written for them, issuing retractions or corrections as appropriate.
- Synaesthesia 3y ago
  Some of the biggest lies are by omission.
  - baz00 3y ago
    That's the BBC's policy. They either don't run stories or run them when attention is off the issue where they don't get ranked highly.
- Prickle 3y ago
  Agreed. Back during the Dave chappel Netflix protest, an AP photographer got caught writing false defamatory captions on some of the photos. They didn't issue a correction, but they did edit the photo caption to reflect reality. I would definitely prefer the AP over many other sources.
- ysavir 3y ago
  Wasn't that 20 years ago? Do they maintain the same integrity and diligence in the modern click-oriented age?
- mynameishere 3y ago
  When they find some lone wolf breaking the rules, sure they'll punish him. But when they act collectively, there is rarely a correction or (ha ha) compunction. The Russiagate hoax (ie, "Trump is a Russian agent") should have called for widespread reform of the entire media. I can't believe there is a single person who can take CNN/NY Times/LA Times/etc seriously at this point. But when it is 95 percent of the group committing the same outrage, I doubt any of them feel particularly guilty. Years before was the even-worse "Weapons of Mass Destruction" propaganda campaign. Maybe you're too young to remember it, but that was a whopper.
dmead 3y ago
many of the comments in this thread have been found to be unsubstantiated.
orangepurple 3y ago
Dr. Eric Berg DC describes this specific YouTube phenomenon as it pertains to health information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETonDtzkETw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETonDtzkETw
- tspng 3y ago
  I very strongly would not take any advice from a chiropractor and scientologist who gives health advice and sells his own products / courses on Youtube.
- snakeyjake 3y ago
  Chiropractors are as qualified to speak on medical matters as I am. I am 100% not qualified to speak on medical matters. YouTube would be completely justified in removing any content I create regarding diseases, treatments, or related matters. The fact that it is not common knowledge that chiropractors are actual, literal, charlatans is incomprehensible to me. edit: on further reflection I am probably somewhat more qualified than chiropractors to analyze and determine the validity of medical direction based on its source because the entire foundation of their profession is false and I know this whereas they do not.
DonaldTruck 3y ago
[flagged]

nvm0n2 3y ago

This is the same failed strategy that caused Google Video to lose to YouTube. GV bet hard that people would only want to watch video from big legacy content houses like Disney and barely cared about "UGC" as they called it back then (user generated content, now just known as content). They thought it was a joke. YouTube smoked them by embracing the UGC but somehow Susan Wojcicki never learns. It's incredible that Google put her in charge after the GV fiasco and left her there so long, given she seems psychologically incapable of embracing the bazaar-like nature of what made YouTube successful in the first place. If it were up to her, internet video would be a recreation of the 1970s TV environment. A handful of channels broadcasting worthy and civilized (but incorrect) things.

whywhywhywhy 3y ago
Google's search product and YouTube's algorithm have both been completely gutted for this need to control the sources and what people see down to being shadows of their former usefulness. Now we could say this is a good thing because there's less radicalization and what many consider misinformation. But I think the clear difference in usefulness wont result in those people not seeing that information but more an eventual move away from the Google services rendering the control useless because the next most viable services will likely be under Chinese control anyway. Yandex already offers a far superior image search to Google, Tiktok video search is preferred by young people over Google text search.
js8 3y ago
I agree with most of what you wrote, except: > handful of channels broadcasting worthy and civilized Maybe that's different for public TV (like BBC), but I found lot more interesting and civilized content on YT than in commercial TV. Commercial TV execs have this elitist notion that common people are stupid and are not interested in any sort of intellectual content.

jsnell 3y ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37928151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37928151

haunter 3y ago

On the other hand I never understood why foreign state propaganda is allowed on Youtube? What's the appeal allowing the chinese state channels (CGTN, Global Times, CCTV) to broadcast there?

conradfr 3y ago
They are not foreign to everyone.
- philwelch 3y ago
  YouTube is blocked in China.
tivert 3y ago
IIRC, CCTV is literally all Chinese domestic television. So if it was blocked, it would be much harder to watch things like the Chinese New Year Gala. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_New_Year%27s_Gala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_New_Year%27s_Gala
palmfacehn 3y ago
I believe they removed Russia Today and PressTV from YouTube. CGTN is still allowed for whatever reason.
itishappy 3y ago
I like having something to compare my US state propaganda against.
data_monkey 3y ago
What's the appeal of allowing US state propaganda?

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

* Initial participants will be 20 organizations across 10 countries, selected for having a notable long-form video presence on YouTube but that have yet to embrace short-form news formats. (Other media companies, like ESPN, have already leaned into Shorts.)* The phrasing is a bit awkward for me. I get the part that YT is looking for channels that are more substance and less blurb. That seems pretty okay. "Have Yet To Embrace Short-Form" is a weird; it seems to imply that only that news orgs who will eventually do short-form are being considered. I assume that's not what they meant. Also that ESPN isn't considered - because it's short-forming, not because it's a sportsball channel. That's an oddly specific choice; it could imply a view that sports reporting is as equally important as critical news. Again, that might not be what this article meant.

palmfacehn 3y ago
They're really pushing this shorts thing in a failed attempt to compete with TickTok. For me the format is totally inane. Vertical video doesn't make sense for desktop. I imagine most people here are not looking for soundbite news. News networks have been pushing that for decades and are consistently loosing viewers.

leetgirl83 3y ago

These authoritative sources refuse to cover the Covid lab leak theory fairly. Including even prestigious journals like Science and Nature

userinanother 3y ago
That’s less of an issue than failing to properly describe COVID as airborne and spreading misinformation about the effectiveness of handwashing on COVID transmission
mandmandam 3y ago
The Lancet paper which "justified" all that was pretty clearly bullshit from the start, had anyone actually read it. Then it came out that basically everyone involved had massive conflicts of interest. Then it came out that scientists were being pressured by Fauci and other higher ups to denounce the lableak story. Then it came out that Facebook, Twitter, and others conspired - literally - with government to block 100% true information which was inconvenient to the narrative. ... And it's still seen by many as a "conspiracy theory", and there's still been no accountability. None. I was flagged for posting the above information here twice a couple days ago, even after adding sources. Now they want to pull this shit? Mere days after the breathless 'beheaded babies' claim? What in the world did we do to deserve this media.

rickdeckard 3y ago

Interesting decision. Regardless of the selection quality, the move indirectly flags everything else on YouTube as "Entertainment"...

blah_why_not 3y ago

[dead]

palmfacehn 3y ago

It wasn't long ago that many of the official US news outlets consistently had their videos severely vote ratioed. YouTube then removed the dislike count, allegedly to protect small creators from being brigaded. The puzzling part of that explanation was in their addendum, "creators can still view the dislike count" The war on "disinformation" marches on. I doubt many skeptics will be won over by this latest tactic. Those with establishment biases can already choose their favored outlets. This raises the obvious questions: Who is this feature aimed at? Will it become mandatory? Will content be further restricted on the basis of truthiness?

megous 3y ago

It's really hard to find anything uploaded by regular people/primary sources ever since youtube became the "news" source aggregator. They can rename it newstube for all I care. This makes it mostly worthless to me, when most news are simply regurgitated from somewhere else anyway and this aggregation just makes the search results insanely repetitive and it's impossible to scroll down to something else but this type of content. It's only escapable by searching by upload time, but then you lose any sorting by relevancy among the non-news content. If anything I'd like a non-news filter. :) News are already available from better, more focused websites.

seydor 3y ago

youtube cracking down on adblockers is going to be a big boost for demonetized ads. no ads no adblocker needed

skymast 3y ago

[dead]

firebat45 3y ago
Linking to Breitbart doesn't do a lot for the credibility of your claim.

screye 3y ago

Don't need to go too far to see how this is a bad idea. In light of last yesterday's malicious reporting by the likes of NYT, BBC and Al Jazeera, can any outlet claim to be authoritative ? > In a sample GIF provided, that included outlets like the Associated Press, Sky News, PBS News Hour, ABC News, and CBS Evening News. When the primary first sources themselves have been poisoned, these secondary source media houses might as well be completely useless.

jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
Professional news outlets will redact stories if they are deemed to be untrue most of the time, whereas the clickbait vlog-spam that overruns YouTube will definitely not do that. YouTube has a severe disinformation problem, so it's better to have this than what has been happening for years. Give them compliments for at least _trying_ to solve the problem
- screye 3y ago
  The alternative to professional new outlets is not a free for all. It is to establish granular sources whose reputations hinge on their ability to give multiple sides and report known facts instead of conjecture. NYT can't be held accountable, because they are 1000s of people under a big-tent; by-lines are hidden in small script. People like Derek Lowe, Stratchery, Sinocism and similar high-profile commentators/youtubers can be held accountable. If something goes wrong, it is their fault, and their fault only. Youtube should embrace what its biggest strength is : granular individualized rewards. Individuals whose rigor outstrips that of major organizations should be promoted far more than traditional media houses. Afterall, they're what makes Youtube unique. If nerds playing geoguesser are better at satellite intelligence and triaging than NYT, then so be it. Geoguesser dude gets my trust.
  - jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
    > The alternative to professional new outlets is not a free for all. It is to establish granular sources whose reputations hinge on their ability to give multiple sides and report known facts instead of conjecture. Many of these outlets on the internet clearly do not agree with this principle. CNN's CEO recently said only 10% of the early Gaza footage they reviewed was usable and the rest was often disinformation garbage. Plenty of these sources you allude to posted the garbage as fact and did not redact.

nottorp 3y ago

They say AI selected. So engagement driven instead of information driven as their front page?

speak_plainly 3y ago

As bad as most news is (leaning hard on narratives, engaging in propaganda, etc.), it's still light-years better than the YouTube equivalents. YouTube is in a tough situation. Competition from TikTok and their paranoia about 'safety' and 'misinformation' is going to be its undoing. It's already become a shadow of its former self unfortunately.

renegat0x0 3y ago

Attempts were made: 1) to provide "disinformation governance board" 2) to provide "oversight boards" 3) to provide fact checkers, which Facebook agreed were 'just an opinion' On the other hands there has been rumors about Russia, China spreading misinformation. Government tries to limit free speech to fight disinformation, but in reality taking control over free speech. We will see how it ends. Once you start controlling the narrative, there is no ending.

kornhole 3y ago

I would love to see the inverse: page of nonauthoritative sources. The authorities release fake news in a way that makes it sound legit. I would rather follow the independent sources with the understanding that they will conflict and I will be able to evaluate the many different points of view to develop my understanding. The best place for anti-authoritarian sources now seems to be Rumble.