BREAKING NEWS FROM THE STREAMING SECTOR
YOUTUBE ADDS 9/11 FACTS TO NOTRE-DAME FIRE VIDEO
Viewers tuning into the live broadcast of the Paris Notre-Dame fire on YouTube were met with a banner displaying misplaced facts about 9/11. Ironically, the ‘information banner’ was designed by YouTube to fact-check topics that generate misinformation on the platform. It adds a small info box, below videos, that provides third-party factual information from YouTube partners, which
in this case was Encyclopaedia Britannica. According to Vagelis Papalexakis, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California, YouTube’s automated tools may have mistaken the visuals of the burning cathedral for 9/11 footage. He said: “As long as we’re using automated methods to throttle content there is always a margin for mistake. This
is a multifaceted problem; not only is it working to detect false news but something being falsely associated with 9/11.” A spokesperson at YouTube said that they were “deeply saddened by the fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral”, and that “these banners are triggered algorithmically, and our systems sometimes make the wrong call”. YouTube has disabled the banners for live streams related to the fire.
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