Covid-Related Misinformation on Youtube: The Spread of Misinformation Videos on Social Media and the Effectiveness of Platform Policies

Aleksi Knuutila; Aliaksandr Herasimenka; Hubert Au; Jonathan Bright; Rasmus Nielsen; Philip N Howard

Covid-Related Misinformation on Youtube: The Spread of Misinformation Videos on Social Media and the Effectiveness of Platform Policies

Aleksi Knuutila, Aliaksandr Herasimenka, Hubert Au, Jonathan Bright, Rasmus Nielsen, Philip N Howard

Sosiologia

Tutkimustuotos: Työpaperi › Tieteellinen

Abstrakti

For this memo, we identified all Covid-related videos which circulated on social media, but which YouTube eventually removed because they contained false information. Between October, 2019 and June, 2020 there were 8,105 such videos - less than 1% of all YouTube videos about the coronavirus. We find that:
• It took YouTube on average 41 days to remove videos containing false information, based on a subset of videos for which this data was available.
• Surprisingly, Covid-related misinformation videos do not find their audience through YouTube itself, but largely by being shared on Facebook.
• Facebook placed warning labels about false information only on 55 videos, less than 1% of the misinformation videos shared on the platform.
• Misinformation videos were shared almost 20 million times on social media, which is more than the shares gathered by the five largest English-language news sources on YouTube combined (CNN, ABC News, BBC, Fox News and Al
Jazeera)

Alkuperäiskieli	englanti
Julkaisupaikka	Oxford
Kustantaja	Oxford Internet Institute
Painos	2020.5
Vuosikerta	Comprop Data Memos
Sivumäärä	7
Tila	Julkaistu - 2020
OKM-julkaisutyyppi	D4 Julkaistu kehittämis- tai tutkimusraportti taikka -selvitys

Tieteenalat

5141 Sosiologia

Pääsy asiakirjaan

https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2020/09/Knuutila-YouTube-misinfo-memo-v1.pdf

Siteeraa tätä

@techreport{57861bc8e41f45a1a636724bdc541716,

title = "Covid-Related Misinformation on Youtube: The Spread of Misinformation Videos on Social Media and the Effectiveness of Platform Policies",

abstract = "For this memo, we identified all Covid-related videos which circulated on social media, but which YouTube eventually removed because they contained false information. Between October, 2019 and June, 2020 there were 8,105 such videos - less than 1\% of all YouTube videos about the coronavirus. We find that: • It took YouTube on average 41 days to remove videos containing false information, based on a subset of videos for which this data was available. • Surprisingly, Covid-related misinformation videos do not find their audience through YouTube itself, but largely by being shared on Facebook. • Facebook placed warning labels about false information only on 55 videos, less than 1\% of the misinformation videos shared on the platform. • Misinformation videos were shared almost 20 million times on social media, which is more than the shares gathered by the five largest English-language news sources on YouTube combined (CNN, ABC News, BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera)",

keywords = "5141 Sociology",

author = "Aleksi Knuutila and Aliaksandr Herasimenka and Hubert Au and Jonathan Bright and Rasmus Nielsen and Howard, \{Philip N\}",

year = "2020",

language = "English",

volume = "Comprop Data Memos",

publisher = "Oxford Internet Institute",

address = "United Kingdom",

edition = "2020.5",

type = "WorkingPaper",

institution = "Oxford Internet Institute",

}

TY - UNPB

T1 - Covid-Related Misinformation on Youtube

T2 - The Spread of Misinformation Videos on Social Media and the Effectiveness of Platform Policies

AU - Knuutila, Aleksi

AU - Herasimenka, Aliaksandr

AU - Au, Hubert

AU - Bright, Jonathan

AU - Nielsen, Rasmus

AU - Howard, Philip N

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - For this memo, we identified all Covid-related videos which circulated on social media, but which YouTube eventually removed because they contained false information. Between October, 2019 and June, 2020 there were 8,105 such videos - less than 1% of all YouTube videos about the coronavirus. We find that: • It took YouTube on average 41 days to remove videos containing false information, based on a subset of videos for which this data was available. • Surprisingly, Covid-related misinformation videos do not find their audience through YouTube itself, but largely by being shared on Facebook. • Facebook placed warning labels about false information only on 55 videos, less than 1% of the misinformation videos shared on the platform. • Misinformation videos were shared almost 20 million times on social media, which is more than the shares gathered by the five largest English-language news sources on YouTube combined (CNN, ABC News, BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera)

AB - For this memo, we identified all Covid-related videos which circulated on social media, but which YouTube eventually removed because they contained false information. Between October, 2019 and June, 2020 there were 8,105 such videos - less than 1% of all YouTube videos about the coronavirus. We find that: • It took YouTube on average 41 days to remove videos containing false information, based on a subset of videos for which this data was available. • Surprisingly, Covid-related misinformation videos do not find their audience through YouTube itself, but largely by being shared on Facebook. • Facebook placed warning labels about false information only on 55 videos, less than 1% of the misinformation videos shared on the platform. • Misinformation videos were shared almost 20 million times on social media, which is more than the shares gathered by the five largest English-language news sources on YouTube combined (CNN, ABC News, BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera)

KW - 5141 Sociology

M3 - Working paper

VL - Comprop Data Memos

BT - Covid-Related Misinformation on Youtube

PB - Oxford Internet Institute

CY - Oxford

ER -