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Why YouTube Remains A Fertile Ground For Electoral Disinformation

April 12, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

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Hello,

There are layers of opacity around YouTube ads, making it nearly impossible to find harmful ads, and track the source of funds. Despite multiple fact-checking organisations writing to YouTube alerting them that they aren't doing enough to tackle mis/disinformation, the platform is still a fertile ground for false information. Read on!

No, This Communal Textbook Has Not Been Published By Kerala Government

This went viral: A collage of two chapters from a textbook apparently published by the state government in Kerala. The photo shows a textbook with a syllabus that propagates Islamic orthodoxy and teaches students to follow it.

But, here’s the truth: BOOM found that the same photos went viral in 2016 and a private Islamic school in Kerala was pulled up for teaching communal content to its students.

The verification process:

Taking a hint from the replies stating that the viral photo is old and not from a Kerala government school, we found a news report by The News Minute dated 12 October 2016.
It stated that photos of a textbook by the school chain—Peace International School had gone viral and Kerala police had registered an FIR against a branch of the school in Kochi for promoting enmity among different groups on the basis of religion.
The Kochi city police had made arrests as well. In January 2018, Kerala government had ordered closure of the controversial Peace School in Ernakulam for teaching communal content.
Also, Minister for General Education of Kerala V Sivankutty posted on X calling out the viral photo stating that the book is not published by the Kerala government’s education department.

AI Anchor And Karl Marx: CPI(M) Warms Up To Artificial Intelligence

🔖 Is AI in politics ethical?: Use of artificial intelligence (AI) in politics is an ethical debate that the entire intellectual spectrum is unsure of.

But in an unexpected turn of events, the Bengal branch of the CPI (M)—The Communist Party of India (Marxist)—often accused of being opposed to computers in the 90s, stepped ahead of others a few weeks ago with an AI generated presenter, Samata.

In two episodes that are out now, an AI anchor, a sari-clad woman, reads out the party’s perspective on recent events in West Bengal in English. Find out more in Dipanjan Sinha’s story.

Why YouTube Remains A Fertile Ground For Electoral Disinformation

🔖 How it started: At the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of YouTube users were watching videos in Greek and Arabic that encouraged them to boycott vaccinations or treat their COVID-19 infections with bogus cures.

For years before this, several YouTube videos had already promoted false cures for cancer. The video sharing giant wasn’t doing much to combat its problem of misinformation.

How it’s going: Turns out, YouTube is still a fertile ground for disinformation, which can be amplified through YouTube ads. A recent investigation by Access Now and Global Witness has found that ahead of the general elections in India, YouTube is approving ads purporting baseless allegations of electoral fraud, lies about voting procedures, and attacks on the integrity of the electoral process.

Archis Chowdhury spoke to experts regarding the mis/disinformation problem on YouTube.

Lok Sabha Elections 2024 Most Popular Topic Of Mis/Disinformation In March

🔖 In March, BOOM published 122 fact-checks across English, Hindi, and Bangla.

Among these, the largest portion of claims targeted the Muslim community, comprising 9%. Following closely were claims involving Member of Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, accounting for 5%, and Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, comprising 4.1% of the total, among others.

Read the detailed analysis by Nidhi Jacob.

BJP Opponents Targeted With Surrogate Ads Worth ₹3.7cr On Facebook In March

🔖 In March, just the month before the official commencement of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Facebook saw a massive surrogate ad campaign with over ₹3.7 crore being spent on ads on obscure pages that targeted the opponents of the ruling-Bharatiya Janata Party.

Which Facebook pages sponsored surrogate ads targeting BJP opponents? Which political parties spent the most on official pages? Find out in Archis Chowdhury’s report.

🚫 Fake News You Almost Fell For

🔍 A set of photos claiming to show an Intelligence Bureau report document being reported by Telugu channel ETV Andhra Pradesh predicting a landslide victory for the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) in the upcoming Andhra Pradesh assembly election, is fake. 🔗 Anmol Alphonso ↗️ debunked the claim.

🔍Is the Indian National Congress not contesting for the upcoming Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Arunachal Pradesh? Also, did Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra refrain from entering the state? Social media claims so! Find out the truth in 🔗 Archis Chowdhury’s ↗️ fact-check.

🔍An old video showing a group of people attacking BJP supporters went viral with a false claim that it shows people in Dwarka, Gujarat thrashing those who were campaigning in support of the BJP ahead of the impending Lok Sabha elections. Read 🔗 Srijit Das’ ↗️ fact-check.

🅱️ Recommends

📖 This week's recommendation is: How to think about deepfakes and emerging manipulation technologies

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and designed by H Shiva Roy Chowdhury.

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