YouTube launches fact-finding information panels for U.S. users looking for specific unmasked topics, with the video platform calling it the coronavirus outbreak, emphasizing the need to quickly identify misinformation.
YouTube is introducing the new feature as a number of hoaxes related to COVID-19 continue to spread on the service and elsewhere online. YouTube’s fact-finding panels, for example, could debunk the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is a bio-weapon, as well as the myth that it could be potentially fatal if people who contracted the coronavirus used pain medication for ibuprofen.
However, YouTube’s fact control panels are not a comprehensive means of stopping misinformation on the service.
First, there must be an accompanying article available from a suitable publisher on the given topic. In addition, the fact checks will only appear if people are looking for a specific claim. For example, YouTube said that if a user searches for ‘hit a tornado in Los Angeles’, they may see a relevant fact-finding article, but if they search for a more common question like ‘tornado’, they may they do not.
According to YouTube, he uses more than a dozen U.S. publishers to verify claims made in videos, including FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, the Washington Post Fact Checker, and Dispatch, through the open ClaimReview network. YouTube states that any U.S. publisher will be able to participate in the fact-checking if it meets the ClaimReview standards and whether it is a verified signatory to the Code of Principles of Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network or an authoritative publisher ”. YouTube also said it provided $ 1 million to IFCN through the Google News Initiative.
“Our systems will become more accurate and over time we will expand this feature to more countries,” YouTube said in a blog post.
The fact-checking feature builds on the information panels launched by YouTube for the first time in 2018, providing links to sources such as the Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia for ‘topics prone to long-term misinformation’ – in other words conspiracy theories such as the moon landing was a farce. . YouTube said it was now using the panels “to address an additional challenge: misinformation that is rapidly emerging as part of a fast-moving news cycle, where unfounded allegations and uncertainty about facts are common.” There have recently been links to the WHO, CDC and local health authorities for videos and searches related to COVID-19.
The US launch of the fact-checking panels comes after YouTube launched it in Brazil and India last year.
The video service shared an example of what the fact control panels look like:
