YouTube’s Algo Placed A 9/11 Attacks Link Under Notre Dame Fire Videos

The iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris caught fire yesterday. The roof was destroyed and the spire fell down. Naturally, there was intense media coverage of the incident given that Notre Dame happens to be one of the most famous landmarks in the world. Plenty of video coverage was available on YouTube where the video streaming service’s fact-checking algorithm erroneously placed a link to the 9/11 attacks under the Notre Dame fire videos.

YouTube introduced this algorithm last year in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation on the platform. The algorithm places links to Wikipedia and encyclopedia entries under news videos so that viewers could be provided additional context about a story from proper sources.

However, it was noted that YouTube’s algo had placed links to 9/11 attacks on many major streams of the Notre Dame fire videos on the site. It seems that the algorithm interpreted the video footage of the burning Notre Dame as footage of the 9/11 attacks on the WTC twin towers. It just goes to show that the algorithm is far from perfect.

“These panels are triggered algorithmically and we sometimes make the wrong call. We are disabling these panels for live streams related to the fire,” the spokesperson for YouTube said.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: YouTube