The video streaming giant YouTube has removed over 1 million videos for providing misleading information on COVID 19. According to YouTube’s Chief Product Officer Neal Mahon, 1 million videos have been eliminated for hazardous COVID-19 misinformation since February 2020.
Mahon revealed the information in a blog post about how the company deals with misinformation on its site. He wrote, “Misleading news has migrated from the margins to the centre. It is no longer confined to the closed-off realms of Deniers or 9/11 truthers; it has spread to every sphere of life, at times tearing communities apart at a faster rate”.
Consequently, the YouTube official noted that “poor content” makes only a tiny portion of overall YouTube content. “(about .16-.18 percent of all views are on the content that violates our policies). He went on to say that YouTube eliminates about 10 million videos every quarter, and most of them don’t get up to 10 views.
Facebook recently made a similar statement concerning content on its site. Last week, the social media platform released a report claiming that memes and other non-political content are the most popular posts on their website. And in response to criticism over its management of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation, the corporation claims that vaccine misinformation isn’t reflective of the type of content most users encounter.
During the pandemic, Facebook and YouTube’s rules on health misinformation have come under fire. Because both networks have over a billion active users, even a modest amount of content can have a big influence. Both platforms have so far refused to say how vaccination and health misinformation spreads or how many people are exposed to it.
Mahon also stated that addressing disinformation is just one part of the company’s strategy. YouTube is also working on “increasing the amount of information from reliable sources and decreasing the distribution of dangerous propaganda videos.”
