Jesselyn Cook, YouTube’s Plan To Rein In Conspiracy Theories Is Failing
By Jesselyn Cook
Conspiracy
theorists have capitalized on YouTube’s change to its algorithm by
using it to rally their bases for grassroots promotion.
[Editor’s note: What could be more embarrassing to Americans than for YouTube, Google, Facebook and the other Social Media Giants to tell us what we can and cannot watch, what we can and cannot read, as though they had some privileged access to truth, when they are promoting propaganda and disinformation on a massive scale and doing their best to deny us the right and the ability to sort things out for ourselves. For example,
If you want to know why they are taking such drastic measures, it’s because the Internet has allowed a thousand voices the opportunity to publish and share their own research about complex and controversial subjects, where the organs of the state (including especially the mainstream media) can no longer dictate the difference between “the true” and “the false”. We don’t need to be “told the truth”, just the opportunity to search for it.]
Using web analytics tools such as Social Blade and
in consultation with experts, we analyzed more than a dozen major
YouTube channels that produce conspiracy theory videos to see how their
subscriber counts, viewership and estimated earnings have changed. Some
channels are growing at slower rates than before, others at around the
same rates or a bit more rapidly. Changes to video production levels can
affect growth, but as these YouTube channels’ enormous subscriber bases
continue to consume and share their videos, all are still drawing in
new viewers — and the creators behind them remain undeterred.
The harm that’s been done in many cases can’t now be undone.Guillaume Chaslot, former algorithm engineer at Google
There are significant financial incentives for conspiracy theorists
to keep churning out clickbait disinformation on YouTube: They can still
promote their merchandise and third-party fundraising pages on their
videos, and they can still take a cut of the earnings from ads on their
content through YouTube’s monetization program. The payoff can be huge.
Views from video
recommendations, which can be especially vital for new YouTube pages
trying to develop audiences, have been cut in half for content featuring
harmful misinformation, a YouTube spokesperson told HuffPost. But
for massive conspiracy theory channels like JustInformed Talk —
channels that YouTube’s algorithm has already catapulted into notoriety,
giving them large and loyal followings — the change has been largely
ineffective in suppressing their influence.
Since uploading the video forecasting its own demise, JustInformed Talk has gained almost 50,000 new subscribers for a total of more than 222,000. It’s still verified on YouTube, and its average daily views per month nearly doubled between the end of January and the start of June (the most recent data available for that metric). The channel, which circulates falsehoods including the existence of a deep-state cabal of elite liberal and Hollywood pedophiles, has also seen its earnings increase, for an annual income of up to $138,600, Social Blade estimates.
Since uploading the video forecasting its own demise, JustInformed Talk has gained almost 50,000 new subscribers for a total of more than 222,000. It’s still verified on YouTube, and its average daily views per month nearly doubled between the end of January and the start of June (the most recent data available for that metric). The channel, which circulates falsehoods including the existence of a deep-state cabal of elite liberal and Hollywood pedophiles, has also seen its earnings increase, for an annual income of up to $138,600, Social Blade estimates.
Next News Network, a rightwing conspiracy theory channel designed to
appear like a legitimate news source, has close to 1.2 million
subscribers and uploads multiple videos per day, including a stream of
fake news. Also verified on YouTube, it has posted videos falsely
claiming that Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of disaster-torn San Juan,
Puerto Rico, was arrested for corruption involving relief funds; that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a speech while drunk; that former president Bill Clinton raped a teenager; that the Clinton Foundation was linked to the murder of a Canadian couple; and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged people against getting the flu shot.
The channel is run by prominent conspiracy theorist Gary Franchi, who
regularly accuses YouTube of targeting him as part of a broader
campaign of partisan censorship — a narrative often pushed by far-right
extremists trying to paint themselves as victims of big tech. Franchi
and other conspiracy theorists have actually capitalized on YouTube’s
change to its algorithm by using it as fodder to rally their bases for
increased grassroots promotion.
“Conservative censorship is on the rise, and we cannot let algorithms
dictate your requests of news and opinion on this channel that we
produce for you,” he said at the start of a recent video, as he always
does before imploring viewers to share and subscribe. “Now it’s up to you
to help us reach new people. Please tell a friend about Next News. When
you’re at the dinner table, bring up our reports, say how much you love
Next News and Gary Franchi.”
In another video last week, Franchi, who did not respond to
HuffPost’s request for an interview, described his audience as “the
lifeblood of our channel,” and said that “because YouTube has removed
our ability to reach new viewers, we now rely 100 percent on you to
grow.”
Within an hour of being uploaded, the video had been viewed some 30,000 times.
Franchi’s videos still bring in an average of up to $2,185 daily
for a rising annual income of as much as $885,600. And despite his
repeated claim that YouTube has “removed our ability to reach new
viewers,” his subscriber count is still steadily increasing.
TRUreporting, another YouTube-verified conspiracy theory channel,
earns up to $76,000 annually from ad revenue on the platform, in
addition to direct donations from users. (YouTube’s “Super Chat” feature allows people to pay to have their comments highlighted and pinned during livestream chats.)
TRUreporting often livestreams multiple times per week.
The channel’s total subscriber count is also still rising — meaning
the QAnon theories and other partisan lies it broadcasts for monetized
views are engaging more and more people on the platform.
YouTube acted “way too late,” said former Google engineer Guillaume
Chaslot, who helped design YouTube’s algorithm. “The harm that’s been
done in many cases can’t now be undone.”
It’s not just established conspiracy theory channels that have
managed to thrive in spite of YouTube’s attempt to contain them. More
than two months after the company said it would crack down on
disinformation, the minuscule channel Evil Preston posted a single
conspiracy theory video about the death of American rapper Nipsey Hussle
that instantly went viral. It drew in 3.1 million views and launched
the page’s subscriber numbers from less than 800 to more than 12,000 in
just two days. Evil Preston has since leveled out at around 20,000
subscribers and continues to spread fake news about Hussle and others to
its new base.
YouTube’s effort to rein in the spread of disinformation on its
platform is a work in progress that comes as “part of our ongoing
efforts to improve the user experience across our site,” the company
spokesperson told HuffPost, stressing that this content represents a
tiny fraction of all videos on YouTube. “We are continuing to apply this
change gradually in the U.S. and as we improve our recommendation
systems and increase their accuracy over time, we will be rolling it out
to more countries.”
In March, amid ongoing calls to demonetize or ban conspiracy theory
videos altogether, YouTube rolled out a measure aimed at debunking them
instead: It started adding links to related Wikipedia pages next to YouTube videos spreading false information.
The links, which are intended to provide users with contextual
information so they can draw their own conclusions, are “as helpful as
putting warning labels on cigarettes,” said Chaslot. “It’s better than
nothing, but I’m not sure that it’s actually effective.”
For videos contending that the earth is flat or the moon landing
never happened, viewers may be directed to Wikipedia pages that explain
the opposite is true. But for other, more dangerous videos, such as
those promoting Frazzledrip theory, Wikipedia offers no solution.
There’s no page dedicated to explaining that former Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin did not,
in fact, rape a little girl, cut off her face and wear it as their own,
as the viral theory suggests. It’s absurd, but on YouTube’s many
Frazzledrip videos, people have left comments demanding to know why the
mainstream media has ignored the story and calling for Clinton and
Abedin to be brutally killed. One such video has nearly 1 million views.
Letting conspiracy theories run wild online has led to offline
violence in the past: In 2016, a man fired a rifle inside a Washington
pizzeria after watching a YouTube video that falsely claimed the eatery was the headquarters for a child sex-trafficking ring. And just last year, another man who embraced anti-Semitic conspiracy theories killed 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
The spread of disinformation on social media platforms can also cause
“increased distrust in democratic institutions and a threat to
productive democratic political processes,” said Becca Lewis, an
affiliate researcher at Data & Society. YouTube serves as an increasingly popular
alternative to traditional news sources, she noted, and in recent
years, it has created an atmosphere where fringe content excels and is
rewarded even without algorithmic support.
“If a creator has already started to grow an audience, that audience
will seek out their content whether it’s going up in the algorithm or
not,” Lewis said. “In many cases, this change [to YouTube’s algorithm]
is too little, too late.”
K. Sophie Will contributed reporting.
[Editor’s note: And amazon.com has been right in there pitching. Not only did amazon.com ban the first edition of Nobody Died at Sandy Hook: It was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control (2015; 2nd ed., 2016), but just this year amazon.com has banned five (5) more Moon Rock Books, which is half of our conspiracy research library.
What has become of Freedom of Speech and of Freedom of the Press? The First Amendment means nothing to these Social Media Giants, where I and others have been targeted by lawsuits to punish us for exposing the truth about staged events like Sandy Hook. We shall persevere in exposing the truth and revealing falsehoods]
[Editor’s note: And amazon.com has been right in there pitching. Not only did amazon.com ban the first edition of Nobody Died at Sandy Hook: It was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control (2015; 2nd ed., 2016), but just this year amazon.com has banned five (5) more Moon Rock Books, which is half of our conspiracy research library.
What has become of Freedom of Speech and of Freedom of the Press? The First Amendment means nothing to these Social Media Giants, where I and others have been targeted by lawsuits to punish us for exposing the truth about staged events like Sandy Hook. We shall persevere in exposing the truth and revealing falsehoods]
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