Fake news has turned into an infestation thanks to the social media. Now social media giants are trying their best to tackle this. Fake news is already being flagged by Google but they are aware that it’s not enough. The people themselves need to be able to spot them. To accomplish this, an Internet Citizens program is launched by Youtube to teach UK teens to spot fake news through workshops.
This day-long workshop will focus on fake news and it will encourage teens to perform fact checks, deal with hate speech responsibly, use reporting tools and, escape “social bubbles”. The program conducted by the video sharing site will begin in Liverpool on 21st April but has plans to expand in youth clubs all around UK cities over the months ahead.
Hosted by YouTubers
The hosts of these workshops will be experienced YouTube creators whose content mainly focus on education, youth culture, and diversity.
They are certainly not expecting to eliminate the infestation of fake news by hosting a few events amongst teens but this step by the streaming video giant is a piece of a much larger strategy. This event will, in theory, encourage both Youtube content creators and fans who are concerned about it and not sideline them. This may be another strategy to damage control the censored LGBTQ+ material fiasco like Wired noted.
The move theoretically shows that YouTube is interested in promoting videos from a wide range of people. And that it wants to fight online hate speech whenever possible.
