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Among many other things, YouTube is a powerful way for knuckleheads to spread conspiracy theories such as the notion that NASA faked the moon landings. Watch one such video, and the service will typically suggest that you indulge in a lot more of them. Speaking at the SXSW festival in Austin today, YouTube CEO Susan […]

BY Harry McCracken

Among many other things, YouTube is a powerful way for knuckleheads to spread conspiracy theories such as the notion that NASA faked the moon landings. Watch one such video, and the service will typically suggest that you indulge in a lot more of them.

Speaking at the SXSW festival in Austin today, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said that the company will begin supplementing hoax videos with facts from Wikipedia and other sources. That will be bad news for Alex Jones—but it should be way better than the current situation, in which conspiracy lovers can gorge on fantasy sans even the slightest dash of reality.

Not that this step will solve matters by itself:

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/973687058605555712?s=20

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harry McCracken is the global technology editor for Fast Company, based in San Francisco. In past lives, he was editor at large for Time magazine, founder and editor of Technologizer, and editor of PC World More


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