Thread by @BBCtrending

THREAD

Is @YouTube to blame for the rise of the #FlatEarth movement? Trending reporter @MarcoLSilva has been investigating how the social media giant has allowed this conspiracy theory to spread online.

This is Dave. He believes the Earth is NOT round and that scientists have been lying to us. When @bbctrending met him, he showed us this replica of an ancient map depicting what our planet is supposed to look like. He doesn’t agree with it, but it was a gift - so, he kept it.

Dave says it was on YouTube that he came to believe the Earth is flat. And it all began with him watching a ton of other conspiracy videos on the platform.

As it turns out, Dave’s journey into flat Earth is quite common. @LandrumAR heard it again and again when she went to the 2017 Flat Earth conference in Raleigh, North Carolina:

It’s okay at this stage if you’re asking yourself (like I did): why in the world would YouTube recommend videos about conspiracy theories?

Back when he was working for YouTube, @gchaslot helped design the algorithm that decides which videos YT recommends to all of us. Guillaume says their main goal was to keep people watching for as long as possible.

Let’s be honest: the truth and well-founded science can at times be a bit boring (please don’t hate us @neiltyson). So, sensationalist, outrageous videos are more likely to keep you hooked - and that’s what YouTube was recommending, @gchaslot says.

But that’s not the whole story. YouTube wasn’t just the place where people were persuaded into believing the Earth is flat. For many Flat Earthers, it was also the place where they got to hang out with like-minded people.

It’s hard to say exactly how many Flat Earthers there are, but their community does seem to be growing. Here’s how popular the topic has become on Google in recent years.

YouTube’s been blamed for contributing to that growth, but the company says it’s taking action against misinformation and conspiracy theories on the platform:

If you’d like to find out more, have a listen to our podcast on this story:

bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3c…

PS: after we published our investigation, @YouTube spoke to @thisisFoxx about our story.
bbc.co.uk/news/technolog…