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YouTube wants to debunk conspiracy theory videos using other resources, such as Wikipedia:
In Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told the audience at the South by Southwest Interactive conference that the social video site plans to defuse conspiracy theory content by pairing it with corrective information culled from Wikipedia – a site editable by more or less anyone. However, she neglected to inform Wikipedia, which on Wednesday reacted with bemusement.
In a statement, the crowdsourced encyclopedia's parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, said, "We are always happy to see people, companies and organizations recognize Wikipedia's value as a repository of free knowledge. In this case, neither Wikipedia nor the Wikimedia Foundation are part of a formal partnership with YouTube. We were not given advance notice of this announcement." The foundation urged companies that use Wikipedia's content – that would be YouTube – "to give back in the spirit of sustainability."
Wikipedia contributor Phoebe Ayers framed the issue more bluntly, commenting via Twitter, "It's not polite to treat Wikipedia like an endlessly renewable resource with infinite free labor."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2018, @11:36PM (1 child)
Bias comes from several places:
1. Paid bias supports corporations and political candidates. This is the easy one to understand. For example, if an organization with money wishes to push the idea that Seth Rich died due to ordinary crime, they can dedicate people to the task. If they'd rather create the idea of a conspiracy, that is even easier, because Wikipedia's obsession with "reputable" sources is easy to satisfy when you can pay off a journalist. Note that Wikipedia's blacklist of sources is itself subject to manipulation.
2. People with a hobby and time to kill will create a bias. The infamous case was pedophiles putting a very positive spin on that kind of stuff; Jimmy Wales actually stepped in with his authority. Cat lovers do it; the article on feral cat colonies minimizes the harm to wildlife and the spread of disease and other quality-of-life issues. Any time a group of people have an obsession, the large majority of reasonable (but less obsessed) people can't keep things under control. All sorts of awful things get a positive spin because of this.
3. Large organizations are controlled by liberals because they are more likely to consider politics when doing things like hiring, firing, and promoting. This applies to Wikipedia via granting admin privileges and higher.
4. The unemployed have more time to kill. They can edit Wikipedia 16 hours per day, every day of the week. Single people also have an advantage. The mothers and working fathers of our world tend to have an average political viewpoint that is distinctly different from other people; this viewpoint is underrepresented in the fight for control of Wikipedia.
Put those together, and it is obvious that determining something to be a conspiracy will be horribly biased. You might even say there is a conspiracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @12:02AM
It's a mixed bag, some articles are very good, but anything controversial tends to attract bias, and the system that was supposed to police that was broken down entirely and taken over by hostile forces years ago. Climate change articles are a good example, there are several people getting paid quite handsomely with public funds to WP:OWN each and every article and while the system banned some of them at first, they found exploits and within a year they had BECOME the system that was supposed to keep them out.
The problem with relying on volunteer labor is that anyone with money can pay people to 'volunteer' and the next thing you know your workforce is too busy doing what their REAL boss wants to pay you any mind.