living in the digital age takes a look at how algorithms boost polarizing content remember you can always get all the latest news on our website that's d w dot com more news at the top of the hour zoe so michael o'connor thanks for tuning in. what's the connection between bread. and the european union dinos. correspondent baker john stretch this to keep in mind with the rules set by the team. cuts. staffing recipes for success the strategy that make a difference. baking bread on d.w.

. what secrets lie behind the small. find in any mercy of experience and explores fascinating cultural heritage sites. t w world heritage three sixty get the. book is a lizard man we're being poisoned by cam trails that aircraft leave behind an german chancellor angela merkel is hitlist secret daughter social media is full of conspiracy theories like these and many videos supporting them figure prominently on the net why is that and how does social media help to promote conspiracy theories i want topic this time. does this happen to you the. featured on you tube plays

a strange video which seems to fit with what you just see you don't know whether to be irritated all fascinated but you keep on watching so when you find yourself sucked into a parallel universe of alternative beliefs videos on conspiracy theories seem to do quite well on you tube and for some of us at least its algorithm keeps recommending more and more of them they can be disturbing but it's hard to look away so let's take a closer look at the world of conspiracy theorists. reptilians the illuminati or aliens conspiracy theories often postulate that the world is controlled by a small group of strange elites that harm ordinary folks but luckily there's youtube were evil doers bent on world domination unmasked. here are our top three conspiracy theories. number one the moon landing is a myth. july twentieth will mark the fiftieth anniversary of apollo eleven landing

on the moon. but many conspiracy theorists are firmly convinced that no astronaut ever laid a foot on the lunar surface. they claim that the us government staged the first moon walk in a film studio as a show of american power and to prove nasa is capabilities. the alleged proof is there are no stars in the lunar sky because the pics were shot in front of a black screen. and the flag looks to be flapping though there's no breeze on the moon dubious evidence for this supposed hoax is everywhere on the internet. number two the earth is a disk or at least that's what flat earth believes in the us they often hold conferences to compare notes flat earth there's things our world is a disk some even say there's an ice wall around its edge which they claim is and.

access to the antarctic is restricted to certain people. that for logic. number three. leave trails of condensation. in their wake but conspiracy theorists believe that these. chemicals into the atmosphere. even worse poison them and. three examples of conspiracy theories that remain popular even. when it comes to communication the internet of us both is unity's and risks it allows us to exchange information quickly and easily everyone has a voice but on many platforms no one checks the validity of the content that's called fact checking so the web is also full of misinformation online even the

craziest concepts find an audience but why videos that spread the crudest conspiracy theories so popular on you tube is it because the platforms users are especially interested in them and why do they keep on turning up in my feet i certainly haven't been searching for them french i t specialist lot used to help programme you tube's algorithm today has one of the platforms most vocal critics she reveals by provocative content always ranks high on social media gender ism is never going to try to kinds of best. videos that demonstrate that the us is wrong in take minutes because that would be a total failure from the point of view of the editors and days no fair i worsen i mean it's it's a myth and then goes and comes to share and then reason is going to have one goal only it's going to go for the school right now as the goal is to make a you tube. as. big as possible only with if you use

all other social media the algorithm is programmed to fascinate you know team form the aim is to keep uses on the site for as long as possible. the more polarizing the content the more nine hundred eighty s. that uses will stay glued to their screens for instance that theory is just extremely good basically or isn't whereas like some very solid scientific explanation that's less of a click bait that and we'll be considered bad because it makes basically less money for. or you tube or facebook you tube and other social media and then money through advertising and the more uses of us sites content the more companies can challenge for space along with a few counted and interaction rate watch time is a decisive criterion which can with i'm so used to select from ten to fifteen cents

. with bad polarizing content and often strange ideas conspiracy theory videos generate lots of time very crazy faking for missions are i really good because you're like is that true you want to know so you click on your trade to look for to see if it's true or not and even if you click on the look fall like face minutes on the site over and over this resource hopelessly. then zero degrees and missed still going to consider that as a success. that's a fanfic you tube's algorithm isn't programmed to deliver valuable information its goal is to keep me on the side for as long as possible because you tube isn't just a video platform it's also an advertiser stream the more clips i look at the more as they can show me so the algorithms goal is to maximize watch time is programmed so that the next video will be even cooler and more exciting than the last so of course i want to stay tuned it's addictive

a bit like eating potato chips though at some point the bag of chips is empty whereas we viewed you as always another video up next. people watch more than four million videos every minute and every minute more than four hundred hours of content is obligated onto the platform no wonder fans of conspiracy theories can find plenty of proof to support their ideas but you don't have to go hunting for these videos they're also shown to users who seem like they might be open to the. social media can really read the minds of their users thanks to the masses of personal data available to them. so they also know which people are most susceptible to watching content involving conspiracy theories. and he's going to find the most vulnerable people on try to brainwash them with a conspiracy between the like they we see like on the roads of times a conspiracy so after some time that you start to believe like it's

a test to be true because i got like two hundred recommendations on the flattest maybe it's true. psychologists say people who believe conspiracy theories are looking for simple answers about how the world works they often believe it's controlled by an all powerful force and on the net no one's making sure they're not being fed deliberate dissent from ation we've seen that it's conspiracy theories on the rise in and in many countries and vixen conspiracies like people taking vaccines now people are dying from lack of vaccination in europe. so we see that this says very serious issues. and it's a serious issue with real life consequences for example measles is on the rise in many places because many people are refusing to vaccinate and measles is a very contagious disease and can cause disability or even death and he backs those

believe that scenes holds a health risk they find lots of reinforcement for their beliefs on you tube thanks to its algorithm. a recent study found that anti vax theories disseminated by fewer than twenty you tube channels reached more that one hundred seventy million people in the past decade you tube's algorithm promotes the dissemination of controversial videos extreme content delivers watch time and that brings revenue google's parent company alphabet doesn't publicize how much money you've makes but analysts estimate it raked in some thirteen billion euros in twenty eighteen that's a lot of cash but wasn't google's old model don't be evil so if the company wanted to stop the spread of conspiracy theories could it can you program algorithms to push informative content instead. no believe it can be done you could totally ignores it was a child she made it was facts so as as soon as there would be

a public awareness thinking of it we can't continue we said cory's of recommending . false statements like that because it's just going to be a disaster for society in zero four and. as soon as they step in as soon as people are willing to use a term that use i was reading to pay for it on a tuesday then you can easily technically you can easily build the systems. the platform operators are more interested in providing click on providing factual information scientific facts often aren't as entertaining but conspiracy theories attract attention and get plenty of use in spite of the often terrible events they show you mine to the nine eleven terrorist attacks. to this day you some people still believe that the us government was behind the attacks on the world trade center they claim the twin towers weren't brought down by hijacked planes but were blown up instant. refuses to delete such controversial

videos even though they contain pay to lay false information instead. the platform operate his plan to display takes from wikipedia articles alongside him. doesn't believe this approach will do much to help on one side you have very engaging very exciting video content that's going to convince your something on the other side you have like this boring wiki page article and you don't know wrote it. so you sort of think it's going to be less efficient never mind the fact that we could pedia isn't always the most reliable source of information the social media algorithms field what we see and what we don't so we have to be aware that algorithms are neutral they're a means to an end and for you tube that and is to make money that's what most companies want but they also have a duty to their uses and should play by the rules we also need to think about how to combat misinformation and hate content effectively and personally i'd like

companies to be more transparent about how their algorithms work as users we must understand that not everything on the net can be taken as the gospel truth. should be put pressure on owners to take responsibility for the content on their platforms we need to regulate the programming of algorithms join the discussion on d.w. dot com on facebook and on our you tube channel there you'll also find a detail explain about how you tube's algorithm works by and till next.

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