YouTube has a plan to combat the abundant conspiracy theories that feature in credulous videos on its platform; not a very good plan, but a plan just the same. It’s using information drawn from Wikipedia relevant to some of the more popular conspiracy theories, and putting that info front and center on videos that dabble in… creative historical re-imaginings.
The plan is being criticized from a number of quarters (including this one) for essentially sloughing responsibility about this harmful content on to another, volunteer-based organization. But it turns out that’s not even a responsibility that Wikipedia even know it was taking on.
Wikimedia Foundation exec director Katherine Maher notes that YouTube did this whole thing “independent” of their organization, and an official statement from Wikimedia says that it was “not given advance notice of this announcement.”
Everyone on the Wikimedia side is taking this pretty much in stride, however, expressing happiness at seeing their content used to drive the sharing of “free knowledge,” but it does seem like something that YouTube could’ve flagged in advance before announcing the new feature on stage at SXSW.
Maybe YouTube couldn’t say anything because the Illuminati bound them to secrecy… because of the chemtrails.
