Disinformation on YouTube: research and content moderation policies
Factsheet documenting how disinformation on YouTube is researched and how the platform's content-moderation policies operate.
Executive summary
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This EU DisinfoLab factsheet examines YouTube's operational mechanisms and its vulnerabilities to disinformation, providing investigative tools, an outline of content-reporting procedures, a review of policy enforcement, and case studies illustrating disinformation patterns on the platform.
It notes that in 2022 more than 80 fact-checking organizations jointly wrote to YouTube's leadership describing the platform as a major conduit for false information on topics including COVID-19, elections, and conspiracy theories. Regional viewership figures cited include roughly 462 million users in India, 239 million in the United States, and 144 million in Brazil as of October 2023, with Germany identified as the largest EU audience. YouTube was designated a Very Large Online Platform under the Digital Services Act on April 25, 2023.
The factsheet concludes that while YouTube has introduced countermeasures in response to criticism, the DSA's ongoing transparency reporting requirements will be needed to assess whether these interventions have produced a measurable reduction in disinformation on the platform.
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