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Report WHY IS YOUTUBE BROADCASTING CLIMATE MISINFORMATION to MILLIONS?

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Why is YouTube Broadcasting Climate Misinformation to Millions? YouTube is driving its users to climate misinformation and the world’s most trusted brands are paying for it. 15/01/2020 - Avaaz Report WHY IS YOUTUBE BROADCASTING CLIMATE MISINFORMATION TO MILLIONS? YouTube is driving its users to climate misinformation and the world’s most trusted brands are paying for it. 15/01/2020 “Climate change is one of the most significant global “There is no evidence that CO2 emissions are challenges of our time, and continued greenhouse gas the dominant factor [in climate change].” emissions pose an existential threat to humanity.” Richard Lindzen in Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say? -A video being promoted by YouTube’s algorithm with 1.9 million views Google 2019 Environmental Report Contents Executive Summary 8 I. How YouTube Promotes Climate Misinformation 14 • The instrumental role of the algorithm 16 II. Climate Misinformation Videos on YouTube & the Global Brands Advertising on Them 20 Recommendations for YouTube to Act Immediately 40 • Detox YouTube’s Algorithm 43 • Correct the Record 45 Recommendations for Companies 46 Annexes 50 • Annex 1: Methodology for Part I 50 • Annex 2: Methodology for Part II 52 • Annex 3: Table - Climate Misinformation Videos Analyzed for Part II 53 • Annex 4: Full List of Brands Found by Avaaz on Climate Misinformation Videos 54 • Annex 5: Further Examples of Advertisements Running on Climate Misinformation Videos 56 • Glossary 62 • Acknowledgment: The Necessity of Having a Fact-Based Discussion on Climate Change while also Defending Freedom of Expression 64 6 7 Executive Summary Climate misinformation threatens the health and safety of our societies and our planet. Protecting citizens around the world from fake news1 designed to confuse and poison the debate about climate change must be a key priority for governments, advertisers and social media platforms. 1 http://archive.fo/a9srx 8 9 YouTube’s tremendous reach - and control over We found that YouTube is driving millions the content on its site - is unprecedented in of people to watch climate misinformation media history. People around the globe spend2 videos every day. These climate misinformation a billion hours on YouTube every day, and the videos aren’t just being uploaded to YouTube platform has two billion monthly active users,3 and organically seen by interested audiences. which is more than all the households with TVs4 Instead, YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is in the entire world. Even more significant when giving these videos free promotion and showing it comes to audience influence, YouTube is able misinformation to millions who wouldn’t have to reach more 18-34 year olds than any cable been exposed to it otherwise. network in the United States.5 Today, YouTube is Secondly, Avaaz found that YouTube is the preferred platform for teenagers, according to incentivizing this climate misinformation a recent study6 conducted by the Pew Research content via its monetization program. Every Center in the US, with 85% of teenagers (ages time an ad is shown on a YouTube video, the 13–17) saying they use the platform. advertiser pays a fee,10 of which 55% goes to the In 2015, YouTube launched a campaign7 to “help video creator and the other 45% to YouTube. change the way people discuss climate change, so Avaaz found that some of the largest that the issue and its consequences could become household brands in the world, including more relevant and tangible to people around the Samsung, L’Oréal, Warner Bros, Carrefour, world.” In addition, in Google’s February 2019 and Danone as well as two of the largest Whitepaper on fighting disinformation, YouTube’s environmental groups in the world, parent company made it clear that: “We set out Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund, have to prevent our systems from serving up content advertisements running on these climate that could misinform users in a harmful way, 11 misinformation videos. Key Findings of the Report particularly in domains that rely on veracity, such as science, medicine, news, or historical events. To that end, we introduced a higher bar for videos that are promoted through the YouTube • YouTube is actively promoting climate • Ads for some of the world’s most trusted homepage or that are surfaced to users through misinformation to millions of users: brands were found on climate misinformation the “watch next” recommendations. Just because • For the search term “global warming,” videos: content is available on the site, it does not mean 16% of the top 100 related videos • Avaaz was able to identify 108 that it will display as prominently throughout the included under the up-next feature12 brands running ads on these climate recommendation engine."8 had misinformation about climate misinformation videos, including change. household names like Samsung, L’Oréal, With this report Avaaz set out to analyse Decathlon, Danone, Warner Bros and how effectively YouTube is protecting its • For the related videos recommended Carrefour. users from climate misinformation, and to users who searched “climate change” how well it’s implementing the commitments this number equals 8% and rises to • One in five ads found were from it made last February specifically around its 21% for the search term “climate green or ethical brands including recommendation engine. manipulation.” Greenpeace, WWF and Save the Children. For this investigation, Avaaz examined the videos 2 http://archive.fo/Dkygo • The climate misinformation videos YouTube recommends to users when they search 3 http://archive.fo/BwINe Avaaz reviewed had 21.1 million views • Greenpeace, WWF, L’Oreal, Samsung, 4 http://archive.fo/g6Hrl collectively. Danone, Decathlon, Carrefour, Ecosia, Nikin “global warming,” “climate change,” or “climate 5 http://archive.fo/D0hOY manipulation.” Specifically, we focused on the 6 http://archive.fo/ZNnVh • This is just the tip of the iceberg: and Save the Children have confirmed that 7 videos YouTube suggests to users in its ‘Up Next’ http://archive.fo/cNzAW Assuming a similar ratio for they were unaware that their ads were 8 https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/... accompanying these videos and funding feature and the suggestions bar, which are found see page 20. the thousands of other videos below the video on the mobile app, and on the 9 “YouTube's product chief says for 70 percent of the time you watch, recommended through these and their creators. you're riding a chain of recommendations driven by artificial intelligence.” right of the screen on desktop. These YouTube https://www.cnet.com/news/youtube-ces-2018-neal-mohan/ similar search terms, the total views promoted videos drive the vast majority9 of what 10 http://archive.is/ZgoxE on climate misinformation on YouTube 11 users watch on the site. For further details on how Avaaz came to these findings, see the annex. 12 See the Annex of this report for further details on how Avaaz defines likely add up to hundreds of millions. “Related” and “Recommended” videos. 10 11 The videos found and analysed in this report Avaaz recommends that YouTube: cover a broad range of misinformation themes, • Detox the YouTube Algorithm -- The from videos titled “ACTUAL SCIENTIST: Climate company must end its free promotion of Change is a Hoax” and “CIA Whistleblower Speaks misinformation and disinformation videos by Out About Climate Engineering Vaccination extracting such videos from its algorithms, Dangers and 911”13 to claims that there is no starting immediately by including climate evidence that CO2 emissions are the dominant misinformation in its borderline content factor in climate change. policy. Avaaz has classified videos as “climate denial and • Demonetize Disinformation -- Add misinformation” if they contained verifiably false disinformation and misinformation to or misleading information that has the potential YouTube’s relevant monetization policies, to cause public harm, such as undermining ensuring such content does not include public support for efforts to limit human-induced advertising and is not financially incentivized. climate change, as assessed against the scientific YouTube should start immediately with the consensus represented by the Intergovernmental option for advertisers to exclude their ads Panel on Climate Change, NASA, NOAA and other from videos with climate misinformation. peer-reviewed scientific literature. • Correct the Record -- Work with independent In recent years, YouTube has been repeatedly fact-checkers to inform users who have seen criticized for promoting conspiracy theories or interacted with verifiably false or misleading and pushing misinformation, and the company information, and issue corrections alongside has introduced important reforms in response. these videos. In January 2019, YouTube pledged14 “to limit recommendations of borderline content and Avaaz believes that YouTube has the harmful misinformation, such as videos promoting opportunity to be a trailblazer in the fight a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, or against misinformation: the company is already claiming the earth is flat.” In addition, in some committed to solving this problem and creating a countries, including the US, UK, Spain, Germany, better and safer information environment for its South Korea15 and India16, YouTube is displaying users. Now is the time for YouTube to act more information panels17 when people search for systematically and more urgently to implement topics that are “prone to misinformation” — these solutions, like the recommendations
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