YouTube removes Florida shooting conspiracy clip after it becomes top trending video

[midian182]

In the aftermath of mass shootings, it’s no longer just the trauma of the incident that survivors have to deal with; some of them face accusations of being paid actors. A conspiracy video appeared on YouTube that claimed one of the students from last week’s Florida high school shooting is a “crisis actor.” The clip has since been removed, but not before it became the number one trending video on the site.

Following the Las Vegas and the Sandy Hook shootings, several videos appeared on YouTube claiming the incidents were faked. Many creators promoted the idea that these were covers designed to introduce tighter gun control laws or repeal the second amendment.

Similar clips appeared on the Google-owned service following the Florida incident in which 17 people from Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school were killed. One of these showed student David Hogg, who has given several TV interviews since the attack. The video was of a CBS 2 Los Angeles news report on a viral video Hogg posted last year showing one his friends in an altercation with a lifeguard, which you can see below.

The only description on the video was “DAVID HOGG THE ACTOR…” Many commentators called the clip proof he is a crisis actor “bought and paid by CNN and George Soros." Motherboard reports that the person who uploaded the video added another called “David Hogg Can't Remember His Lines When Interviewed for Florida school shooting.”

The “actor” video reached over 200,000 views, pushing it to the top of YouTube’s trending section. It was taken down three hours after Motherboard’s story was posted. Searches for Hogg’s name were still surfacing other conspiracy videos, but most of these now appear to have been removed.

YouTube has tried to tackle the problem of controversial videos by adding more human moderators, removing flagged videos, and de-monetizing the channels that create them, but its algorithm continues to surface clips that are already bringing in a high volume of viewers.

A YouTube spokesperson said the video wasn’t spotted by its system because it contained a clip from an "authoritative news source."

This video should never have appeared in Trending. Because the video contained footage from an authoritative news source, our system misclassified it. As soon as we became aware of the video, we removed it from Trending and from YouTube for violating our policies. We are working to improve our systems moving forward.

A follow up statement confirmed that the site’s algorithm doesn’t always work as intended when it comes to promoting news items.

In 2017, we started rolling out changes to better surface authoritative news sources in search results, particularly around breaking news events. We’ve seen improvements, but in some circumstances these changes are not working quickly enough. In addition, last year we updated the application of our harassment policy to include hoax videos that target the victims of these tragedies. Any video flagged to us that violates this policy is reviewed and then removed. We’re committed to making more improvements throughout 2018 to make these tools faster, better and more useful to users.

Speaking about the claims he is a crisis actor, Hogg told CNN, "I'm someone who had to witness this and live through this, and I continue to be having to do that."

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/73398-youtube-removes-florida-shooting-conspiracy-clip-after-becomes.html

 

[Uncle Al]

You know, Free Speech does not differentiate based on opinions, status, etc. The life guard had every right to express his opinions as does the teenager. If the lifeguard wanted to be a tough guy he could have fined the kid, but he cut the kid some slack. The arrogance of the kid are simply not appropriate and we can only hope that his parents did something about it. A good start would be to make the kid publicly apologize for not knowing the law and for being as rude punk.

 

[Bubbajim]

Doesn't this kind of feed into the whole conspiracy narrative though? Taking down the video just fans the flames - "see? It must be true, they're censoring it!"

The YouTube community at large would undoubtedly do a bunch of videos to disprove the conspiracy. I'd rather see YouTube's algorithms push counter-ideology content next to controversial topics rather than "ban it!". Neither will be particularly effective, but I think the former might at least change *some* minds...

 

[Teko03]

Doesn't this kind of feed into the whole conspiracy narrative though? Taking down the video just fans the flames - "see? It must be true, they're censoring it!"

True, but if you don't remove it then you're contributing to "fake news" & "misinformation"...what do you suppose they do?

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Yeah removing and banning videos of a certain type makes it looks like you are trying to cover something up. Very suspicious... seems YT will just make whatever policy they want so they can ban things they don't agree with. YT is a destroyer of freedom and is clearly politically motivated.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

Hogg's mother was a CNN exec and his father is ex-FBI. That's all we need to know about him to out him as a plant. Fictional events, fake solutions.

 

[Dr Aggressive]

Yeah removing and banning videos of a certain type makes it looks like you are trying to cover something up. Very suspicious... seems YT will just make whatever policy they want so they can ban things they don't agree with. YT is a destroyer of freedom and is clearly politically motivated.

An even creepier idea is to imagine that the conspiracy is actually true, and they are in fact removing videos as a very bad way to hide the information...

 

[JaredTheDragon]

An even creepier idea is to imagine that the conspiracy is actually true, and they are in fact removing videos as a very bad way to hide the information...

There are two options here:
1. The shooting was real, but the shooter and details are all spun to fit the narrative.
2. The shooting was fake, and all the media hype is just that.

I'd usually be somewhere in the middle, but having seen all the "footage" of the casualties in this one I lean to Option 2. One shows a black person down in a pool of fake super-red studio "blood", then there are no black victims shown or described in the media. So easily faked it's ridiculous, and the "footage" is that tell-tale vertical phone crap showing as little as possible. Standard red flags in these types of staged events.

 

[SirChocula]

An even creepier idea is to imagine that the conspiracy is actually true, and they are in fact removing videos as a very bad way to hide the information...

There are two options here:
1. The shooting was real, but the shooter and details are all spun to fit the narrative.
2. The shooting was fake, and all the media hype is just that.

I'd usually be somewhere in the middle, but having seen all the "footage" of the casualties in this one I lean to Option 2. One shows a black person down in a pool of fake super-red studio "blood", then there are no black victims shown or described in the media. So easily faked it's ridiculous, and the "footage" is that tell-tale vertical phone crap showing as little as possible. Standard red flags in these types of staged events.

If you also look into the other "school shootings", there are tons of evidence still out there showing the crisis for hired actors in action. It's all a giant narrative in an attempt to further limit gun control. A government controlled by (((them))), military police state....limiting gun control. You do the math.

 

[holdum323]

Wow! You mean all those funerals were fake news. That's some great acting. I can't believe the replies that are being posted here on this thread. Are you people for real?

 

[JaredTheDragon]

Wow! You mean all those funerals were fake news. That's some great acting. I can't believe the replies that are being posted here on this thread. Are you people for real?

So what you're saying is that you've never seen a movie, TV episode, or series that filmed a funeral? Not once in your life have you ever seen a staged grieving enactment?

 

[Silvernine]

Wow! You mean all those funerals were fake news. That's some great acting. I can't believe the replies that are being posted here on this thread. Are you people for real?

What? You did not know? This whole "tragedy" and events are all staged by the filthy left. Even our own President's acknowledgement of the event and his thoughts and prayers, "My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting," was all an act and staged by the left. The whole shooting was literally staged. That's why the law enforcement, the right, and the President have been giving their thoughts and prayers to all these poor young actors and actresses.

President's thought and prayers to the poor actors and actresses: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/963878055969198080

 

[Bubbajim]

True, but if you don't remove it then you're contributing to "fake news" & "misinformation"...what do you suppose they do?

I said in the next sentence what I would suggest they do. Use their promotion algorithm to serve up content that busts the myths. Counter arguments are better than censorship, imo.

 

[holdum323]

How any normal thinking person could believe this was some thing made up, and performed with actors amazes me. That scares the Hell out of me. Do you not watch the news? You think this is some staged movie to take away your guns. You all are sick puppies. How in Gods name could this be faked by the Democrats?
I'm going to unsubscribe from this thread. This is unbelievable and this BS is scaring the Hell out of this old man. This country is in big trouble if there are people out there who believe this was just a made up movie in order to take away your guns.

 

[psycros]

The left created this conspiracy monster and now they can't control it. How many Hollowood half-wits and even a few Democrat senators said that 9-11 was an inside job? Remember "Not My President"? If Gore had won and Bush supporters had been singing that tune the media would have portrayed them as traitorous madmen. Meanwhile, it was an agenda-driven leftist FBI who burned a bunch of religious zealots to death in Waco and killed a mother and her baby at Ruby Ridge, and then tried to cover it up. It was the American LEFT who bussed in hundreds of violent protestors to help burn Ferguson to the ground. Its ALWAYS the left who produces fake news stories or throws gas on the real fires in order to push an agenda...you can't name even one that was wholly generated by the other side. When Fox, blatant Republican cheerleaders that they are, misreports something they always post a retraction in very short order. Not so with the others. So, when the liberals lose control of the narrative and get accused of wagging the dog, oooh, we can't any of that conspiracy talk! We're STILL waiting for something - anything - to support their claim that Russia somehow stole the election for Trump by manipulating social media. Even if that were actually true the only thing it would prove is that most Americans no longer *trust* the legacy media..and that's not Putin's fault, its the fault of the shameless liars who've controlled the media for 30-plus years. We're still waiting for an apology from CNN for airing interviews with witnesses of the Portland school shooting who were NEVER THERE. Same for the Boston bombings, and that's just the first two examples that come to mind - there are literally dozens from the past few years. Pretty soon the only news that most Americans are still going to trust are personal accounts from friends and family. I'd give my eye teeth for an objective news source but I know its a pipe dream. Even those who don't have an agenda to promote can always be bought off or intimidated into being somebody's mouthpiece.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

The left created this conspiracy monster and now they can't control it....

Replace "Left" with "Langley" there and your comment increases in accuracy tenfold. Remember the Church Committee hearings? Congressional record is not conspiracy theory.