In the era of fake news, YouTube has become the ultimate conspiracy theory “rabbit hole.” One researcher recently searched “crisis actor”—a term that is making headlines for all the wrong reasons—and turned up 256 videos.

In the era of fake news, YouTube has become the ultimate conspiracy theory “rabbit hole.” One researcher recently searched “crisis actor”—a term that is making headlines for all the wrong reasons—and turned up 256 videos. The “next up” recommendations (provided by YouTube’s algorithm) included nearly 9,000 conspiracy videos with nearly 4 billion total views. The deep dig exposes a fatal flaw in automated algorithms, which Ypulse data shows young consumers have noticed: They told us that social media companies have a responsibility to slow the spread of fake news. (Quartz, Medium)