YouTube to Begin Funding and Feeding You the 'Authoritative' News

Social media is a great place to freely share ideas. Or at least it was. Now, it's become a political minefield. The social media giants like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have become involved in regulating and controlling the content and information that it's userbase has access to. It's no longer a marketplace for the competition of ideas. It's becoming a marketplace for them to sell you ideas they want you to be influenced by and buy into.

Conservative-leaning topics and users have had their posts or videos removed, and some have even been banned for what they talk about. Censorship has become common, as social media giants appear to be Left-leaning and don't like to tolerate the Right-wing free speech that much. Instead of the userbase being political with ideas, now platforms are being political in who they allow to even have access to speak.

Among the corporate purges of undesirable account on social media platforms, users themselves have up and left on their own as well. With sis like d.tube, and real.video, many have been leaving YouTube in order to avoid being censored or potentially have their accounts and videos removed from online existence. 2018 also saw a big movement to #DeleteFacebook after the Cambridge Analytica issue.

_{Source: wikimedia/public domain}

YouTube is possibly trying to change it's tactics. Instead of censoring and removing content or users that they find objectionable for whatever reason they deem, such as it being "fake news" or "conspiracy theories". Content YouTube deems unrealiable, untrustworthy or "fake" has been popular in the wake up breaking news events like mass shootings.

YouTube doesn't want this content being popular or promoted. It wants what it deems to be" reliable" and "trustworthy" to be at the front instead. In an announcement on Monday, YouTube said it wants to "build a better news experience ... together" with the users. $25 millions will be invested as grants to news organizations to help them expand their video content operations.

The goal of this "better news experience" will be to identify and promote "authoritative" news sources. This effort to "support quality journalism" will bring certain news videos to the top of user's feeds. These news producers will get funding and tools to help them reach an audience.

I suppose the days of having your feed populated with the videos of users you subscribe to, and of related content to what you're interested in, won't be guaranteed to last. YouTube will push it's "approved" news sources to the top of the breaking news and developing stories sections for now. But maybe someday soon you won't see what you want to see on your own feed, but what YouTube wants you to see.

With people's trust in news sources and traditional new industry waning, YouTube will try to be an authority on what people can trust. YouTube said:

Starting today, users will begin seeing information from third parties, including Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica, alongside videos on a small number of well-established historical and scientific topics that have often been subject to misinformation, like the moon landing and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

In the announcement post, they show a screenshot of what the new feed will be like (I didn't use it due it not being without rights to use). I notice that non-mainstream sources are omitted from the "moon landing" search and related videos. NBC, NASA, Sky and USA Today are the "trusted" and "authoritative" sources they want you to look at. CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, the New York Times and other mainstream sources are among another screenshot as they are also "authorized" sources.

The YouTube homepage will show the Top News only among sources it considers "authoritative". They hope to lessen the need for moderation of content and "misinformation" by choosing what people will get to see, rather than letting the popularity of trending videos pop into user's view.

They say these changes are only going to be applied to the breaking news and developing stories, but who knows if that will remain the case in the long-term. They want to "interrupt that downward spiral" of users being recommended more "questionable" videos when you already watched something questionable, such as "Parkland shooting crisis actors". Recommended video tend to show the same type of content, but they saw that this will still be the case (even though they are trying to reduce this "problem").

Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief product officer, says:

"What I think we can do is, instead of telling users what to think, give them as much information as possible, so that they can make those decisions themselves."

The goal is to "get rid of hoaxers" and "elevate journalism it considers valuable". Wikipedia will be used for "fact-checking" and providing an "information panel with context" for users to see alongside the videos YouTube deems to be "fake".

Shadow-banning, down-rating and censoring content may be backfiring for them publicly, so this is the new approach. People have noticed their viewership is down from media giants that used to drive traffic, such as YouTube, Google or Facebook. They now get most of their hits coming from alternative source.

Is filtering the news feed to only show content that a platform approves, really in alignment with letting people think for themselves? Or is it more in line with trying to tell people what to think by only giving them that information to consume and think about? If they wanted people to think for themselves, they couldn't they simply let people find things for themselves by searching for it?

Adding another layer of filtering in order to promote and push "authoritative" news is choosing what people get to see, and hence what people get to consume and think about. The mainstream media establishment narratives will be pushed for greater consumption, while diminishing the potential exposure to information that can contradict and expose falsities that is often part of the fakestream media. YouTube seems to be simply choosing to be the authority of news, as it determines what news is "authoritative", "reliable" or "trustworthy".

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Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.

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References:

• YouTube Debuts Plan to Promote and Fund 'Authoritative' News
• YouTube to fund FAKE NEWS media while labeling it “authoritative” (and banning all independent media)
• Building a better news experience on YouTube, together

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