YouTube announced this week that it is partnering with information site Wikipedia to offer users "additional information" when viewing videos that might be considered controversial or related to a conspiracy theory.
The measure was revealed by the company"s CEO Susan Wojcicki at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. The festival is a major event for "creating and discovering" for professionals in the video, music, and interactive industries. The plan is that in the near future, should you be watching a video that falls into such a category, a text box called an "information cue" will pop up below the video suggesting you to look further into the matter rather than taking what is said in the video as the full story.
With respect to the viewing experience, Wojcicki said:
"People can still watch the videos but then they actually have access to additional information (and) can click off and go and see that,".
Conspiracy theories have become an issue for the Google-owned company who previously made changes to search engine results to promote more "authoritative results". It"s unclear how many videos may be labeled as such or exactly which ones, with an example mentioned during the presentation concerning the 1969 Moon landing. As it stands, the effectiveness of this change remains to be seen.
Source: CNBC